Serial
by Fluffy-CSI
Summary: Chapter 25 up. An exceptionally clever serial killer is preying on the women of NYC. Can Goren and Eames stop him before he stops them? Casefile. BA.
1. A morning's work

A/N: As usual, my willpower didn't last. This is the new casefile I mentioned in my author's note in WHBH. Inspired by my friend Xiris, who requested that I write him into one of my stories as "a very efficient serial killer." His wish is my command!

* * *

"Shit."

Startled, Eames pulled up short to keep from walking into her partner, who'd just come to a sudden stop in the middle of the path they were following through the park. "What?"

He stepped aside, allowing her a view of the scene his body had been blocking. "It's . . . it's him again."

She took a step past him and looked at the body that lay on the ground, surrounded by crime scene technicians, most of whom were crouched awkwardly a few feet away from it and trying to lean forward without touching the dark patches of grass that surrounded it. Alex knew all too well what that dark-stained grass meant. "Jesus," she muttered, raising a hand to rub her forehead as she turned to face her partner, "I was hoping . . ."

"I know. Me too." She looked shaken, and for a moment he considered asking if she wanted him to work the scene alone, but on the heels of that thought came the realization that she'd be offended, not appreciative, if he were to say such a thing. "Ready?" he said instead, slipping his hand into the pocket of his coat to fish out a spare pair of gloves.

She took a breath, then nodded. "Yeah."

Without further conversation, they headed down the gentle slope that led to the body, each automatically slipping into the role they were accustomed to playing at a new scene.

Eames looked around the clearing, searching for a detective on the scene, until she spotted a stocky, bearded man with a gold shield on his coat. "Detectives Eames and Goren, Major Case," she said shortly, using her pen to gesture over her shoulder at her partner, as she walked toward the detective. "Do we know who we're looking at?"

"Hey. I'm Brazzo," he replied, offering a hand to her at the same time as he turned to glance at the body. "Park West Detail. She's got a school ID in her pocketbook that says her name's Maria White. Card's from CUNY, good 'til '11."

"A grad student, then." She nodded and jotted that down, then took another look around the scene. "Who found her?"

"Young couple, in for the day from Jersey," he replied, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward a shaken-looking young couple. "David and Elena . . ." He paused, checking his notebook. "David and Elena Keller, Upper Montclair, New Jersey."

Eames nodded again gave gave him a businesslike smile. "Ok. Thanks. Hang around, my partner might want to talk to you too."

"Sure."

* * *

"Has she been moved?" Goren asked the area at large as he squatted down at the edge of the blood-stained grass that surrounded the body.

"Uh, no," said a wiry man standing to his left. "The couple that found her . . . it was pretty clear she was dead when they got there. They didn't bother. Uh, I'm Detective McGuire," he added uncertainly when he got no response to his explanation. "That's my partner, Brazzo, over there."

Goren laid two fingers lightly over the woman's cut throat, probing the edges of the wound. "Uh, yeah. Hi. Is the M.E. here?"

McGuire blinked, wondering if he'd said something wrong. "Um, yeah. I think it's one of the woman M.E.s. She's -"

"Fancy meeting you here!" interrupted the woman in question as she entered from stage right, giving Goren's heel a friendly kick.

He looked over his shoulder and offered her a distracted smile, then returned his attention to the corpse in front of him. "Morning, Danielle. Want to tell me what I'm looking at here?"

"Well," she replied, sounding irritated by his distraction , "since you asked so nicely . . ."

Reluctantly turning his eyes away from the body again, he gave her a mildly impatient look and waited.

The medical examiner sighed and crouched down on the opposite side of the body. "Her ID says she's twenty-three. Looks relatively healthy. Cause of death . . ." She fingered the neck wound. "Pretty obvious, I think. Judging by the amount of blood, it looks like she died here."

"Struggle?" Goren asked, picking up one of the victim's hands and examining the fingernails.

"Not much. He probably hit her before she knew what was happening, and once she was bleeding . . ."

Sighing, he put down the hand and moved his attention to the torso, which was bare except for a bra. "This looks expensive."

"Huh?" Danielle said, surprised by his observation.

"My partner will probably know," Goren went on, ignoring her exclamation and leaning toward the body's legs. "Was she sexually assaulted?"

"Yeah," she said tightly, all traces of her smile disappearing as she gestured toward the victim's groin. "You're going to wish you hadn't heard about it, though."

Suspecting that he already knew what he was going to hear, he just clenched his jaw and waved a hand to tell her to go on.

"Definite vaginal trauma," she sighed, beginning to point out the injuries as she spoke. "Torn skin and abrasions."

"But . . . almost no bleeding."

"Yeah. No blood. He did it while she was bleeding out. And it looks like he used a condom." She paused, taking another look at the savaged body, and sighed. "You think it's your guy?"

Goren, too, looked back to the body, trying to see the bloody form as a woman who had been alive only hours ago. Maria White must have been an attractive girl; even with blood caked in her hair and dirt smeared over most of her face, he could see that she had finely-drawn features and a petite figure. She also had dark hair.

Dark hair, just like the last two victims.

Slight build, just like the last two victims.

Perimortem rape, just like the last two victims.

Tearing his eyes away from the body, he looked at Danielle and nodded. "Yeah, it's him. I'm going to need you guys to go over her with a fine-toothed comb, ok?"

"As if I wasn't going to do that anyway," she said with a sniff of annoyance. "You know -" She stopped there as she caught sight of the woman approaching them. "Would that be the partner who knows all about bras?" she asked Goren, tipping her head toward the newcomer.

"Uh, yeah," he said absently as he turned to his partner. "Eames, come over here and look at this bra."

Eames did as ordered, crouching down next to him and studying the body. "That's a new pick-up line, even for me. What is it about the bra that I'm supposed to be looking at?"

"What is it?"

"I beg your pardon?" she asked, blinking. "It's a bra. Come on, Bobby, I know you've seen one before."

He looked up and gave her a thoroughly unamused chuckle before turning back to the body and slipping a finger under one of the bra's straps. "I mean what _brand _is it. It looks expensive to me."

Giving him a slightly incredulous look, she leaned forward, pushed his hand aside, and twisted the back of the bra's band so she could see the tag inside it. "Victoria's Secret. Nice stuff for a grad student, but not really a budget buster. Have you found anything else, or were you hung up on the bra?"

"He was busy doing his job, Detective," the medical examiner said coolly. "As was I."

"Uh-huh." Giving the other woman a dubious look, Eames leaned slightly to the side in an attempt to see what was printed on her jacket. "And you are . . .?"

"Oh, uh, sorry," Goren mumbled, glancing at his partner. "This is, uh, Danielle Matthews. She's with the ME's office."

"Ah. A friend of yours?"

Flushing slightly, he shrugged, then turned back to the body. "Her throat was cut and she was raped. It looks like it's him."

"Hmm." She leaned forward again, examining the torso. "This stripping of the body, though . . . that's new. Check out these welts - it looks like he _ripped_ her panties off."

"Rage?" Goren said thoughtfully, tracing one finger over the marks she had pointed out. "There wasn't a struggle, judging from her upper body. She was down well before he got to undressing her, so he would have had no real need to use violence when he did it."

"Escalation," she said, nodding slowly.

"Or provocation."

"How do you figure that?" she asked, planting her hands on her knees to help herself stand up. "You just said there was no struggle. She's not likely to have provoked him by going down like a stone."

Shaking his head, he straightened up beside her. "It didn't have to be _direct_ provocation. Something about her . . . something she did while he was watching her . . ."

Eames sighed. "Why do I get the feeling we're going to spend the foreseeable future doing deep victimology on Miss Maria White?"

"Oh, come on, Eames. Where's your sense of curiosity?"

She snorted. "It went on vacation two bodies ago. I'm done with the officers - you want to talk to any of them?"

"Uh, I don't think so." He glanced over his shoulder at the small clutch of people standing a few feet away. "Not for now, as long as you've got the basics. You ready to go?"

"You don't have to ask me twice." Belatedly remembering the medical examiner, she turned to the other woman. "We want everythingyou can get off this girl, ok? _Everything._"

"I've worked homicide cases before, Detective. I don't need to be told to collect evidence. Ask your partner." With that, Danielle Matthews graced the partners with one last abrupt nod and walked away.

Eames, eyebrows raised, turned to Goren. "Ask you, huh?"

He grunted and turned toward the car. "She knows what she's doing."

"Oh, does she now? And how is it that you know this but I don't?" she teased, following on his heels as he started walking.

He gave her a dark look. "I'm sure you've already figured that out for yourself. Just take my word for it - she'll be fine on the case."

Chuckling, she unlocked the car and climbed in. "Are there any women left in Manhattan that you _haven't _dated?"

"Yeah." He pulled his door closed, then looked down to straighten his tie instead of looking at her as he said, "You."


	2. A missing link

"Son of a bitch!" Deakins growled later that day, slamming a fist down on his desk. "You're telling me that after we ordered stepped-up patrols in the Park, he _still _got in and killed a girl?"

"We're not happy about it either, Captain," Eames said tightly.

"Especially since this is his third," Goren added. "Which officially puts him in the category of serial killer, according to the clinical criteria.".

"Oh, that's just great," Deakins sighed, slumping back in his chair as his anger faded into plain old annoyance. "Congratulations to him. I'll be sure to send a flower arrangement - _as soon as you guys find him!"_

Goren and Eames exchanged a look, then stood up in unison. "We'll let you know if we come up with anything else, sir," Eames said through gritted teeth.

"You do that. Check in with me at the end of the day if I don't see you before then."

"Yes, sir."

Almost before they'd closed the office door behind them, Eames was opening her mouth to comment on the atmosphere of the conversation they'd just finished.

"He's getting pressure from all sides," Goren said before she could get the words out. "We shouldn't hold it against him if he's irritated."

"Since when are you so magnanimous?" she asked as they sat down at their desks.

He glanced up from the pile of papers he was sorting, offered her a small smile, and then returned his attention to them. "I'm not being magnanimous. I'm being empathetic. We both know what it's like to have people leaning on you to solve something and get it done it yesterday."

"My vocabulary stands corrected." Flipping open the slim file they'd started on Maria White, she sighed. "Where do you want to go from here? Background?"

He nodded. "It's all we've got right now. That and the physical similarities between the victims."

"You really think he's just picking them by looks? It _could _still be a coincidence."

"No," he said, leaning over his desk to look at the file she was reading. "It's a common behavior for serial killers. Ted Bundy preferred women with long, dark, straight hair."

She shrugged, still unconvinced. "But none of the girls have been prostitutes. They've all been solidly middle-class."

Looking up again, he blinked. "Pardon?"

"If you're going to go by prototypical serial killer traits, then you need to account for why his victims aren't hookers or runaways." Amused by his look of consternation, she reached out to pat his hand comfortingly. "I know how to read books too, Bobby."

Clearing his throat, he shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear it, too. "I know you do. I'm just, uh . . . no, never mind. You have a point. None of these girls were unusually vulnerable, so why put in the extra work to get them instead of grabbing a girl off the street?"

She gave him a slight smile. "Still want to claim it's only their looks he's attracted to?"

"You find me another link between those three women, and then we'll talk about revising the profile."

"Gee, thanks." She slapped at the back of his hand, which was still on her desk, trying to drive him back to his own desk. "Back on your side of the room, buddy. If I have to do your work for you, then you sure don't get to sit and watch me do it."

"I was kidding, Eames!" he protested, looking wounded as he dropped back into his chair. "We do need to link them, but I'm not going to tell you to do it on your own. What kind of information do we have on the first two girls?"

Annoyed at herself for having bought his line, she glowered at him. "You know, one of these days you're going to catch me in a bad mood and I'm going to break your nose first and ask questions later."

Wincing, he rolled his chair a few more inches away from her. "I would prefer you didn't. What do we know about the first two victims?"

She sighed and opened another folder. "Elizabeth Osborne, twenty-nine. Mid-level administrator for an HMO office in the city. She's got a brother and a sister, and her parents are still alive."

"Hobbies?"

"Beats me," she replied promptly, then went on,."The second girl was Leah Olney, nineteen. Part-time student, part-time secretary in a psychiatrist's office. Only child, survived by her mother."

"That's it?"

"Bobby, they didn't even realize these cases were related 'til less than a week ago. Cut whoever worked them some slack, will ya? Besides, you know you live for doing this stuff - fleshing out profiles, trying to connect the dots . . ."

Her voice trailed off there and her face took on a slightly distant look, her eyes focusing on something over Goren's shoulder. Curious, he turned to see what she was looking at. The only thing of any interest in her line of sight appeared to be a uniformed officer leading a visitor across the room, and he turned back around wondering if that's what she had been staring at or if he'd missed whatever it was. "Uh, Eames?"

She blinked, pulling her eyes back to him. "Yeah?"

"You zoned out."

"Oh, uh, sorry. There was this gorgeous . . . uh, never mind," she interrupted herself, thinking better of talking to her partner like he was one of her girlfriends. "Were you saying something?"

"No, you were. You kind of faded out."

Before she could answer that, a throat cleared from behind her. Automatically, Goren looked up and Eames turned around in her chair, where they found Deakins standing with the man who had been crossing the room a few seconds ago. "You guys got a lead," the captain told them, nodding toward the stranger. "Talk to him. Thanks, son," he added, patting the man's shoulder jovially as he turned to leave.

Eames stared, she couldn't help herself. Standing in front of her was one of the most beautiful men she'd ever seen. Inky black hair and piercing blue eyes with eyelashes that would make a model jealous adorned his classically handsome face, and the black turtleneck and trousers he was wearing only accentuated the fact that he was tall - as tall as Goren, maybe taller - and well-built.

Watching her with an expression that told her her reaction wasn't unusual, the man nodded to her. "You're Detective Eames, I assume?"

"Uh, yeah," she managed, trying to force herself fully back into reality. " And that's my partner, Goren. You need to talk to us?" she added after a second, gesturing across the desks to Goren.

"Yes." He started to sit down in the chair that sat to the side of their desks, then stopped himself. "I'm sorry; I didn't give you my name. Dr. Chris Hammond," he offered, holding out his hand to her and then to Goren.

"Well, have a seat, Dr. Hammond." Goren had to be getting a kick out of seeing her go soft like this, she thought as she shook the newcomer's hand and gestured him to the chair. If she got one iota of flack from her partner later . . . well, she'd get her revenge. "How can we help you?"

"Actually, I'm hoping I can help _you_," he said, giving them a pleasant smile. "I saw on the news that there was another woman killed. Is that right?"

Sighing, Eames nodded. "They certainly don't waste any time broadcasting this stuff anymore. Yes, there was another murder, but I'm sure you can understand that we can't release any more facts than that."

"Her name was Maria White?"

Eames glanced at Goren, silently ordering him to field the question while she studied the man.

"We can't confirm or deny that, sir," Goren said evenly. "What was it you needed to talk to us about?"

"I'm sorry," Hammond said, looking appropriately abashed. "It's habitual. I tend to exhaust a line of questioning before I feel I can move on. Uh, I'm a psychiatrist," he said, noticing their looks of confusion. "I guess you could say it's an occupational hazard. But anyway . . . have you connected the victims yet?"

The two detectives exchanged mildly incredulous looks, wondering where this man had come from. "What makes you ask that?" Goren finally said warily.

Hammond laughed. "It's fairly common knowledge that serial killers pick victims who appear to be totally random but often aren't. Which is why I asked if you hadconnected them yet. Because if you haven't . . . I think I might be able to supply the link."

Goren crossed his arms and gave the man a politely skeptical look. "Such as?"

"There are five doctors in my practice, and Elizabeth and Maria were both patients there. Leah worked for us part-time."

"You think the connection is your psychology practice?" Eames asked.

"Psychiatry," Hammond corrected mildly. "And it would appear to be a viable possibility, don't you think?"

"Were Elizabeth and Maria patients of the same doctor?" Goren countered, vaguely irked by the man's self-possession.

"No, they saw two different ones. But I'm sorry, but I can't give you the names of the doctors. I'd go to HIPAA hell," he added jokingly. "Not to mention the ethics issue."

"We understand," Eames said, chuckling dutifully. "How about you give us the name of your practice and some contact information, and we'll take the legal route in?"

"I -"

"Goren!" Deakins called from across the room, startling all three of them. "Get over here. Myers needs your opinion on a profile."

Not pleased at having to leave before the interview ended, he glanced at his partner, hoping she'd somehow veto the captain's order, but she just grinned and waved him away. "Go help the guy, Bobby. I've got things covered here. We're almost done anyway."

"Ok." As he stood, he nodded to the doctor. "Thanks for this information, Dr. Hammond. It could turn out to be very useful."

"I would hope so," Hammond replied with a slight smile as Goren turned and headed across the room. "He's . . . unusual," he said, turning back to Eames when Goren was out of sight. "Is he always like that?"

"Yep," she said with a grin. "You get used to it. So, the name of your practice . . .?"


	3. An intriguing statement

A/N: Don't worry, I'm still working on White Hat. It's just coming along more slowly than this. I've got the next chapter about half done.

* * *

When Goren returned from an impatient twenty minutes of helping Myers with his profile, he found the mysterious doctor nowhere in evidence, and his partner deep in conversation with another female detective. 

". . . Of course I got his number, Bron," Eames was saying to Detective Liggitt. "He's a witness; contact information is kind of important for those, remember?"

Liggitt sighed dramatically and pretended to swoon over Eames's desk. "Aren't you even a little tempted to put it to better use than just sticking it in a file?"

Catching sight of her partner as he approached, Eames gave the woman a warning look and said only, "We'll see."

"You'll see what?" Goren asked casually, pretending he hadn't overheard their words as he walked to his desk and sat down.

"Whether Eames is going to get a date out of your case," Liggitt said with a grin. "Good luck with that, Alex. I'll see you later."

"Bronwen!"

"Well, we _were_," was Liggitt's matter-of-fact parting shot as she turned and headed for her own desk.

Eames groaned quietly and shook her head. "_This_ is why I don't like to hang out with women. That's going to be all over the squad room by the end of the day."

"That Hammond asked you on a date?"

"Probably," she said, rolling her eyes, "even though he didn't. Liggitt's just a little overexcited."

"At what?" Goren asked, unsure of what she was referring to, although he felt slightly more relaxed for knowing that it wasn't Eames going on a date with Hammond.

Snorting, she tossed a paperclip at him. "If you hadn't noticed, he's gorgeous. Definitely better looking than the slim pickings here." She paused, realized how insulting that had probably sounded, and added, "Present company excluded, of course."

"Of course," Goren said dryly. "Did he ask _her _out? Or was she just in raptures over the sight of him?"

"Raptures over the sight of him," she replied cheerfully. "She doesn't get out much. Neither do I, for that matter. You gonna begrudge us what little eye candy we can get?"

Acknowledging defeat in good humor, he shrugged. "Far be it from me. So, what did he have to say about the case when he wasn't busy sending Liggitt into raptures?"

She flipped through her notes, looking for the salient points she had written down. "Not much that you didn't hear while you were here. His practice is registered under his name - apparently psychiatry practices aren't set up like law firms - and Leah Olney worked there three days a week doing clerical work and phones. Maria White and Elizabeth Osborne saw doctors who work in the same office, but neither of them saw Hammond himself."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Did you get permission to see any office files?"

She gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me? Hell would freeze over before any doctor worth his salt would release those without a subpoena, and no matter how cute he is, Hammond is still one of them."

"Hmm," he murmured, fiddling with his pen. "I thought maybe you'd charmed permission out of him after I left."

"You're vastly overestimating my abilities as a seductress," she said, giving him a teasing smile. "For which, by the way, thank you - I can always use an ego boost. But no, he showed no signs of being so dazzled by my beauty that he wanted to throw his ethics out the window."

He almost spoke up in protest of that before he realized that she was being facetious. "Fine," he muttered instead when he caught the smirk on her face. "I just figured I'd ask. That's all he gave you?"

"That, and his opinion of you," she said, her smirk widening.

"Which was?"

"You're 'unusual.' Shocker, I know."

Her wry tone and completely straight face forced a smile out of him. "That's it? 'Unusual'?"

Raising her eyebrows, she replied, "You were hoping for . . . what? Brilliant? Terrifying? Devastatingly handsome?" Noticing his eyes widen slightly at the last, she grinned. "He's a snappy dresser and he's beautiful. It's entirely possible that he'd be more likely to fall for you than me."

"No," he said without thinking. When she gave him a curious look in response to that, he shrugged slightly and turned his eyes to the pile of paperwork on his desk. "He was watching you. With interest."

"He was?"

"Yes." Keeping his eyes on the papers, he said without segue, "Where's this office of his, anyway? Can we get there today?"

"Subpoenas, Goren, remember?"

Actually, he hadn't remembered. He'd been occupied with other thoughts. "Mmm."

"Don't sulk," she admonished lightly, flipping open her laptop and pulling her notes closer. "It doesn't become you, and besides, the day's almost over. That's cause for celebration."

Sighing, he sat up a little straighter and reached for the Maria White file that was lying on her desk. "I'm going to try to get in touch with White's next of kin."

" 'Kay. Enjoy yourself."

* * *

"Cause for celebration, huh?" he asked an hour later, leaning forward to cover the laptop screen with his hand and startling her out of her reverie-disguised-as-working-on-the-computer.

"Huh?" she managed after a second as the momentary surge of fight-or-flight adrenaline faded.

"You said the end of the day is a cause for celebration."

"Oh, yeah. It is. Is it the end of the day already?"

Snickering, he nodded. "Yeah, it is. What were you so absorbed in that you lost track of time?"

She glanced at the screen, which was displaying a page of the notes she'd been typing before her mind got sidetracked by images of her short talk with Hammond. Had Goren been right? she had been wondering. Had the doctor been looking at her with unusual interest or intensity? If he had, her memory hadn't recorded it; maybe her partner was just being protective.

"Eames."

She blinked and focused on him again. "Sorry. I was typing up some notes."

"With your eyes on the Santa mug?" he asked - a polite way of telling her he knew she was full of shit, she knew.

"So I started daydreaming. Sue me," she shot back, sticking out her tongue at him.

Affecting a look of concern, he shook his head sadly. "You know, the longer you work with me, the more like me you get. That's got to go, before we both end up stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to think and get ourselves run over by impatient pedestrians."

Eames burst out laughing, surprising both herself and him. "With you coming up with images like that, Bobby, _believe _me, I'm totally secure in my relative sanity. Now, if it's the end of the day, maybe we should consider going home, eh?"

"Uh, yeah." He cleared his throat, looking like he was trying to decide whether to add something else. "Actually, I was wondering - do you have plans for tonight?"

Not having expected that, she looked at him blankly. "Tonight?"

"Yeah. It's been a while since we went out for drinks or anything," he said, cautious in the face of her confusion. "I figured we could both stand to blow off some steam from this case."

Cocking her head to the side, she gave that a few moments' consideration. "Yeah, ok. I have to get home soon-ish to feed the dog, though, unless I want him eating whatever he can get his mouth on instead."

"No problem. It was ugly enough that one time he ate your shoe and I had to watch you chase him around the apartment wi-"

"It wasn't just a _shoe, _Bobby - it was an Enzo boot with the _perfect _stacked heel!"

He gave her a look that made it clear that as far as he was concerned, said boot _was _just a shoe. "You have lots of pairs of boots."

She closed the laptop and stood up, giving him a comically haughty look. "Infidel! I'll have you know, those were the only pair of boots I owned that actually got the top of my head above your shoulder without making my feet hurt like hell."

"Ah." Enjoying the easy banter that was washing away the awkwardness of their earlier conversation about Chris Hammond, he got to his feet. "In that case, we should have given them a proper burial."

With a knowing smile, she shrugged on her jacket and picked up her bag. "There's still time."

"There is?"

"Yeah. I let him have the boot as a chew toy. Figured it might keep him from eating any others."

"That sets a dangerous precedent, Eames," he said, shaking his head despairingly as he pulled his suit jacket off the back of his chair. "What if he thinks boots are fair game now?"

She sidled over to his side of their desks, waiting for him to gather his belongings, and gave him a cheeky grin. "In that case, I'll give him _you _as a chew toy."

With a philosophical shrug, he followed her out of the room. "I won't fit quite as easily in the dog bed."

She took his arm, pulling him along. "I'm sure we can come up with a way to get around that. But," she added as he turned his head to push the elevator call button, "the dog's bed is _my _bed. It might get a little crowded. And you've been known to snore."

The only reaction he could muster up for that was an incredulous laugh and a mildly peeved, "I don't snore!"

Smirking, she nodded in obviously-false agreement. "You wish. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you definitely snore when you pass out drunk on my couch."

"Eames! That happened _once_, and as I recall, you were just as smashed as I was."

Giving him a laughing look, she stepped into the elevator and leaned casually against the wall. "If you'd stayed awake a little longer so you could propel yourself there, you could have used the bed. So, what bar are we hitting tonight?"

_Would that have been with or without her in it? _Trying not to think too hard about that statement and the ensuing question it raised in his mind, he could only stare up at the numbers above the doors as they lit up and shrug helplessly.


	4. A nice watering hole

A/N: I forgot to put this in the earlier chapters: When you think you know whodunnit, please review and tell me (some of you have already done this, which is cool)! And I'd like to hear your opinions about whether you prefer a casefile to be figure-out-able or whether you like to be kept guessing until the last second. I was thinking about it, and for myself, I couldn't decide which I would like better. So...thoughts?

* * *

"Thanks," Eames said as Goren set a bottle of beer down in front of her. "You've got a talent for picking good watering holes, you know that?" 

Putting his own beer down on the table, he slid into the seat opposite her. "How's that?"

She looked around the bar they were in. It resembled a pub more than a trendy club, and that was just to her taste, especially tonight. "Look around. You managed to find what's probably the only bar in Manhattan that's not full of yuppies or college students. It's impressive, I tell you."

He copied her movement, turning his head to evaluate the room. "Sorry to disappoint you," he told her after a second, taking a swig of his beer, "but that's mostly serendipitous. Denise recommended this place and I'd been meaning to try it out, so I just . . ."

Eames cocked one eyebrow. "Do your exes make a habit of recommending bars to you?"

"I would hardly call Denise an ex, Eames. It's been years."

"Mmhmm," she mumbled into her beer bottle. "So now there's an expiration date on ex-hood? I wonder if she got _that_ memo."

"Oh, give me a break," he muttered darkly, slouching back against the wall of the booth.

Looking thoughtful, she took another sip of her beer. "Speaking of exes, who is this Danielle Matthews character that showed up at our scene?"

"She's an ME," he replied with a shrug.

"Gee, no shit. You're going to have to give me more than that, Bobby. I mean, her telling me to 'Ask your partner' when I asked her a question? That's just weird."

With a sigh, he set down his bottle and crossed his arms. "She doesn't like being questioned on a scene. I don't find that particularly odd."

"Oh, I see how it is," Eames said slowly, nodding as understanding dawned on her. "She's not an ex yet, is she? How come you didn't tell me you had a girlfriend?"

"I . . . she's not my girlfriend," he said uncomfortably. "We've just gone out a few times, is all. She's a smart woman."

"Oh, I'm sure you were totally focused on her intellect," she teased, "and not just her cleavage."

Instead of denying it, he gave her a cool look and shrugged again. "What's your point?"

"You are so _infuriating _sometimes!" she grumbled, smacking him in the arm. "Why can't you just answer a question every now and then? You know you can trust me."

"Trust isn't at issue here," he acknowledged. "But I don't know what it is you want me to tell you about Danielle. She's pretty, we go out every now and then, end of story."

"Is it?" she asked lightly, knowing full well that his reticence meant there was almost certainly more backstory to be told. Well, he obviously wasn't going to talk about it now. "I'm getting another drink. You want one?" she asked abruptly, sliding out of the booth and standing up. "My treat, in honor of your not-girlfriend."

"Very funny."

She just smiled at him. "Drink, or no drink, Bobby? Make your choice."

"Yeah, sure. Another of the same."

"Gotcha." Still shaking her head in amusement, she headed for the bar, where she made no comment as the bartender gave her figure an assessing look before turning to fill her order. That didn't particularly worry her; she knew that dressed in a business suit, as she was tonight, she wasn't going to inspire any man to uncontrollable lust, even if he did make the effort to check her out.

Sure enough, by the time he slid the drinks across the bar to her, his interest had drifted off to other quarters - specifically, a pair of giggling women at the other end of the bar who were wearing roughly half the amount of clothing she was.

She gave the bartender a nod of thanks, dropped a dollar on the bar, and had just started to pick up the drinks when her phone rang. Muttering a curse, she put the drinks back on the bar so she could open her phone and put it to her ear, then picked them up again while she held the phone precariously between her ear and her shoulder. "Eames."

"Detective Eames, hello," said a masculine voice she didn't immediately recognize. "This is Chris Hammond."

"Oh!" Trying not to sound confused by his unexpected call, she started toward the table where her partner was sitting. "What can I do for you, Dr. Hammond?" she asked, lowering her voice as she came within earshot of the table, although she wasn't sure why she was doing it.

"Call me Chris, please. And actually . . ." Hammond cleared his throat, sounding vaguely nervous. "I know you only gave me your card in case I thought of anything else, but this, uh, isn't a work-related call."

_Here_, she mouthed at Goren as she put down his beer in front of him. "Not work-related?" she repeated to Hammond, slightly more at ease at hearing his discomfiture. "Am I allowed to ask what it _is _related to, then?"

"Of course. I didn't mean to sound mysterious. I was . . ."

"Who's that?" Goren asked, nodding at the phone as she sat down. "Boyfriend?" he added after a second, smirking.

"I . . . Chris, would you mind holding on a second?"

"Sure."

Putting her hand over the bottom of the phone, she pulled it away from her ear and gave her partner a scowl. "_You_, concentrate on your drink."

"Who's Chris?" he responded, unmoved by the threatening look on her face.

"No one. Drink." With that, she uncovered the phone again and put it to her ear. "Sorry about that. Mind starting over? The last thing I heard was 'I didn't mean to sound mysterious.'"

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked instead of repeating his earlier words. "I apologize; I didn't think -"

"No, no, it's ok," she said quickly. "I'm just out with a friend. What were you going to say?"

"Oh, I, uh . . ." He broke off his stammering on a quiet chuckle. "Sorry; this isn't something I do very often. Let me try that again: I was wondering if you might be free Friday night. I'd like to take you to dinner."

"Friday?" was all she could get out of her mouth. "Like, tomorrow?" _Isn't it a little more important to figure out if this guy is asking you on a date than to figure out what day he's talking about? _spoke up the voice of reason in her head. The voice had a point, she realized. "I mean, uh, what do you mean by 'dinner,' exactly?"

Across from her, Goren's head jerked up and he looked at her with an expression halfway between curiosity and suspicion.

"Yes," Hammond was saying in her ear, "tomorrow. I wouldn't normally ask on such short notice, but under the circumstances . . ."

"Uh . . ." Eames attempted, unable to pull her eyes away from her partner's narrowed ones. "No . . . I mean . . . I don't have plans for tomorrow. I just . . ."

"And by 'dinner,'" the doctor went on, "I meant 'may I take you out.' On a date."

She could feel her face getting hot, and she hoped it was dark enough in the bar that Goren couldn't see her ridiculous enjoyment of the flattery that was implicit in Hammond's offer. She knew that if she were thinking straight, she'd hang up the phone to consider the invitation before accepting it, especially since the man doing the inviting was, technically, involved in her case, but at the same time, he was really just a tipster, and it wasn't like she had any better plans for the next night.

And it didn't hurt that Goren looked jealous of whoever was on the other end of the phone. "Yeah," she finally told Hammond. "Ok. Tomorrow night is fine."

"Great. I'll pick you up if you give me your address."

Phone numbers were one thing, but Alex much preferred not to exchange addresses with the men she dated until she was sure they weren't stalker material. Hammond, as attractive as he was, hadn't passed that test yet. "Actually, I'm probably going to be working late - this case, you know? How about you pick me up at One Police Plaza at, say, seven?"

There was a minute pause before he replied, "Of course. I'll see you tomorrow night, then?"

"Yep."

"Great. Goodnight, Detective Eames."

"Alex," she corrected quickly, realizing that while he'd given her permission to use his first name, she hadn't returned the favor. "Goodnight."

A slight smile on her face, she closed the phone and set it down on the table, mumbling a thoughtful "huh . . ." as she tried to figure out what had just happened.

"Who's Chris?" Goren asked again, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Chris Hammond," she replied, pulling her shoulders back in anticipation of his reaction. "The psychiatrist who came in today."

"You're going to go on a _date _with him?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"Well, among numerous reasons I can think of, how about the fact that he's a witness?"

She shook her head. "He's not a witness. He just gave us a tip, is all."

"Eames . . ."

"What? Don't tell me it's a breech of ethics, Mr. I-Date-the-medical-examiner-with-the-big --"

He held up a hand to stop her before she could finish that thought. "I wasn't going to comment on your ethics. I was going to comment on your safety. You don't know anything about this man, Eames!"

Letting out a disbelieving breath, she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and that's the point of going on a date - to _get _to know him. I have his number, I know where he works, and I've had a conversation with him - and that's more than I usually get out of a guy before he asks me out."

"Alex . . ."

"What?" she snapped, unable to restrain herself. "You can go out with whoever you want, but you want veto power over who _I _go out with?"

"No. I'm just . . . concerned about you."

"Well, don't be. I'm a big girl, Bobby. I know how to handle myself."

"I know you do. I'm just saying -"

"What?" she challenged again, lifting her chin to look down her nose at him.

One look at her face told him that he was only digging his hole deeper with her. "Never mind," he muttered. "You're right, you're an adult."

"Thank you," she said primly, finally getting around to taking a sip of her beer. "Now, can we please drop it and just relax for the rest of the night?"

Relax? Was she kidding? He doubted he'd be able to relax until he knew her date was over and done with. With that knowledge in his head, though, he still said only, "Sure." Raising his bottle, he tapped it lightly against hers. "To relaxation."

She took another sip of beer and grinned, returning the toast. "Hear, hear."


	5. A cosmic joke

A/N: Sorry for the messed-up formatting...I had to do this on a school computer, and now I'm reminded of why I write with Rough Draft instead of Word!

* * *

The next day dragged on almost interminably for both detectives, a condition which was not improved by the subtle tension that remained between them after the previous night's argument.  
They were still waiting for the DA's office to procure the subpoenas necessary to gain access to the psychiatrists' files, and in the meantime, there wasn't much that could be done, since new leads weren't exactly coming out of the woodwork. Much of the day was spent with each of them on their respective phones, trying to chase down friends or family members of the three victims.  
The tension and the monotony had gotten to Eames by the end of the day, enough so that when her partner looked up and said, "Your date's going to be here soon," she just looked at him blankly.  
"What?"  
"Your date, Eames," he repeated. "The doctor? Or did you forget?"   
"Oh." She looked down at her watch and was surprised to find that it was nearly seven o'clock. "I didn't realize it was this late."  
He dredged up a smile for her. "You'd better start getting your stuff together."  
Automatically obeying, she reached for her bag, then stopped with her hand halfway there. "Wait, are you trying to get rid of me now or something? What happened to you not wanting me to go on this date?"  
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he looked back down at the papers on his desk. "I can't stop you."  
"Damn right, you can't," she blurted, and then immediately regretted her words. "Sorry."  
"S'ok."  
An uneasy silence fell over them then, and they worked for the next fifteen minutes without further comment from either of them on the topic of her date.   
The silence was broken when a rose appeared in her peripheral vision, followed by an arm and then a tall body. "Alex?"  
Startled, she looked up into a pair of dark blue eyes that belonged to her date. "Oh! Hi! Sorry, I was absorbed in, uh . . ." What was he doing standing in front of her desk? she thought with alarm. She'd assumed it was common sense that he didn't need to come inside the building when he picked her up. It was bad enough that her partner knew of and disapproved of this date; the last thing she needed was the rest of the squad to find out and start drawing their own conclusions.  
Quickly getting to her feet, she attempted a smile as she reached for her jacket. "You caught me by surprise."  
"I apologize, then," he said gravely, laying the flower down on the edge of her desk. "If you're too busy, we can reschedule . . ."  
"No, no!" She deliberately softened her smile. "I'm ready. Oh, uh, Bobby," she added, turning to look at the rose and then at her partner, "could you . . ."  
"I'll find something to put it in," he said without looking up.  
"Thanks." She pulled on her jacket and smiled gratefully at the top of his head, then turned back to Hammond. "Ok, let's go." Taking the arm he proffered, she allowed him to start leading her toward the elevators, but she pulled to a stop, somehow unsurprised, when a voice called from behind her, "Eames!"   
Turning back to her partner, she took in the concern he was trying not to let her see. She didn't know why he bothered trying to hide it anymore; to her, after years with him, his attempt at a cool mask was completely transparent. "I know," she told him before he could say anything else. "I will."   
Reassured, he nodded and allowed himself to relax slightly. "Ok."  
She caught his eye for a second before he looked away, and then she sighed and turned back to her date. "Sorry. We can go now."  
He nodded, stealing a quick glance over his shoulder at the other man as they resumed their walk toward the elevators. "What was that about?"  
"What? Oh," she said, realizing that the conversation, which had been perfectly clear to her and her partner, had probably sounded cryptic to Hammond, a near-stranger. "He wants me to check in with him when I get home. He worries," she explained simply.  
He looked unconvinced by that, but he nodded slowly. "He didn't say that, though."  
She just shrugged. "I knew what he meant."

* * *

It was past eleven when the phone in Goren's apartment rang, shaking him out of the light doze he'd fallen into in front of the television. Groping for the handset with one hand and trying to wipe the sleep out of his eyes with the other, he managed an only-somewhat-fuzzy "Hello?"  
"Hey," said his partner's voice. "I woke you up, I'm sorry. You can go back to sleep. I'm just letting you know that I'm ali-"  
"No, it's ok," he broke in quickly. "How was . . ." No, that wasn't the right question to start off on. "Is your date over?"  
He could hear her blow out a tolerant breath before she said sarcastically, "No, I'm calling you while I'm in bed with him. Of course it's over, Bobby. It was a first date!"  
He was tempted to point out that with her apparent enthusiasm for this particular date, he hadn't known what to think, but, knowing that that would only anger her, he kept the words to himself. "Oh," he said instead. "How was it?"  
"It went ok." She fell silent for a few seconds, thinking, then sighed. "You mind if I come over?" she asked, then hastily added before he could interpret that wrong and start to worry, "I'm fine, I promise. I just don't feel like holding the phone for an hour while you question me about tonight."  
She had just gotten home from her date . . . and she wanted to come to his apartment? At midnight? So he could "question" her about her night? "Uh, sure," he managed, mind racing as he tried to figure out her motivation. "Are . . . are you sure you're ok?"  
"I'm fine, Bobby. But, uh . . . can I bring the dog? He's threatening to disown me if I don't give him some attention."  
. . . And she wanted to bring her dog, a terrier of indeterminate origin that seemed to have springs in place of his legs? He looked around his apartment, trying to figure out if it was sufficiently dog-proof to allow the animal inside. He usually kept things child-proof, in case his partner visited with her nephew, but the baby didn't have nearly as strong a propensity for chewing and jumping as the dog did.  
"Bobby?" she said after he hadn't spoken for a few seconds. "You can say no if you're too tired or whatever."  
"No," he replied quickly, "it's not that. I was just trying to look around and see if there's anything in here he could destroy."  
"Oh, give the poor guy a break," she retorted with a smile in her voice. "How was _he_ supposed to know that it's ok to pee on _Glamour_ in my apartment but not _Smithsonian_ in yours?"  
"Point taken," he sighed. "Come on over. You going to walk?"  
"Yeah, he needs some exercise after being cooped up all day."  
Rubbing his forehead tiredly, Goren slumped back on the couch. "Yeah, but he's not going to be much help when he starts trying to _bounce_ a mugger to death. Bring your -"  
"I know, Bobby. I'll be over in a little while."

* * *

A sharp yip from the hallway announced their arrival half an hour later, well before he heard the knock on his door. Giving the room one last safety survey, he stood up and crossed the apartment to let her in. "Hey . . . oof!" he broke off as the dog launched itself into his arms. "Geez, when you said he wanted attention, you weren't kidding."  
"Nope." She slipped past him into the apartment, making no attempt to relieve him of the wiggling bundle of energy. "The walk didn't tire him out much. And you'll be glad to know no one tried to mug or do anything else illegal to me on the way over."  
"I don't see what's wrong with me being glad about that," he said defensively, heading for the couch to unload the dog.  
Amused by the spectacle of her partner getting his face thoroughly licked by her overaffectionate pet, she followed him. "There's nothing wrong with it. It's . . . charming. Or something. It's just that you're the only person I ever get it from. Were you in bed when I called?"   
The dog duly deposited on the couch, he turned to face her and shook his head. "No. I just dozed off watching TV. History Channel was doing a special on the bubonic plague."  
"Ooh, fascinating." With a deep sigh, she plopped down on the couch and gave him an expectant look. "Ok, let's get this over with."  
"Pardon?"  
She spread her arms wide, which sent the dog scurrying to the other end of the couch to avoid a direct hit with the back of her hand. "I'm all yours. Interrogate me. It's obvious you're dying to."  
"I don't want to interrogate you," he replied evenly, crossing his arms. "I thought you came over because you _wanted_ to talk about it."  
"Oh, come on, Bobby. After all that fuss, you don't care if I tell you how it actually went or not?"  
Sighing, he shook his head and turned toward the kitchen. "You want something to drink?"  
"Tea?"  
"Sure." With that, he disappeared into the other room.  
Reaching out to scratch the dog's ears, she stared after him, wondering what was going on in his head.  
"If you want to discuss it," he called from the kitchen after a minute, "I'll listen. If you had a good time and you're just trying to reassure me that he didn't hurt you, then don't worry about it."  
Leaning her head back against the couch, she thought about that. "It went pretty well. He's a nice guy. A little odd, but then, I'm used to 'odd.'"  
He reappeared in the doorway of the room, holding two mugs. "Are you saying he acts like me?"  
"No," she said with a grin, taking her mug from him. "Definitely not anything like you." A pause while she took a sip of the tea. "Your oddness is just kind of . . . natural. You usually don't put any thought into how you're acting, unless you're with a suspect, which is when you turn on the creepy-type weirdness. Chris . . . I kind of got the feeling I was being psychoanalyzed."  
"You don't think I've ever psychoanalyzed you?" he asked curiously, sitting down in the middle of the couch to avoid sitting on the dog, who was still occupying an entire cushion at the far end.  
"Maybe you have," she said, shrugging, "but the key word here is 'feeling.' I've never gotten the feeling around you that you're looking at me like . . . like you want to analyze my personality, piece by piece. If you do think of me like that, you're really good at hiding it. Whereas I guess Chris just isn't."  
"Hmm." He raised his mug cautiously to avoid a collision with the dog as it bounced onto his lap, then lowered it to his mouth again. "He _is_ a psychiatrist, Alex. Maybe it's another of his, uh . . . 'occupational hazards.'"  
"Maybe. I mean, he's more outgoing than you to begin with, so maybe that's just part of the deal."  
Why did he get the distinct feeling that he was being compared to Hammond, and coming up short? Resting a hand on the dog's back, he told himself to get over it. After all, he was her closest male friend, and it was natural for people to compare romantic interests to good friends.  
"Bobby?"  
He blinked, stiffening slightly when he felt her hand on his arm. "Sorry. Guess I'm more tired than I thought."  
"Are you afraid he's going to steal me away or something?" she pressed, not fooled by his weak excuse.  
"_What_?"  
"It was one date, Bobby. I'm not even sure if there's going to be a second. I promise you, it's nothing for you to get worked up about." Sliding closer to him on the couch, she touched her mug to his in a playful toast. "Besides, I've had god knows how many boyfriends in the past five years, and not one of them has caused even a blip in my relationship with you."  
"I know. I don't think he's going to . . . steal you away. I'm just concerned about . . . him. Who he is. I don't like him."  
"Ok, _Dad_," she teased. "How 'bout we save the discussion of whether you approve or disapprove of him until he asks me out again and it actually becomes an issue?"  
"Mmm," he mumbled into his mug, shrugging.  
"Good. So," she said, brightening, "Plague, huh? Is it still on?"  
"Uh . . ." He looked at the clock. "Probably."  
"You wanna watch it? Believe it or not, I'm actually in the mood for one of your annotated TV-viewing experiences."  
That got his attention. "You are?"  
She nodded and picked up the remote control. "Don't let it go to your head, though. Odds are pretty good this is a one-off."  
"A one-off is better than nothing," he said, settling back and stretching an arm across the top of the couch. "Did you know that plague is still active in some parts of the US? In the Southwest, mostly. It's carried by mice."  
"Ugh, mice," she muttered, shivering dramatically as she rested her head on his arm and turned her attention to the TV. "Remind me to clean my kitchen when I go home."  
"You're not afraid of mice," he pointed out.  
"No, but I'm damn well afraid of the bubonic plague!"  
With a chuckle, he leaned forward to put down his empty mug, then sat up again, a movement which relocated her head from his upper arm up to his shoulder. "It's actually pretty susceptible to antibiotics."  
She laughed. "Yours girlfriends must _love _you. 'Ohmigod, Bobby!'" she mimicked in a breathy voice, " 'there's a spider in the shower! Go kill it!'" Then, lowering her voice to imitate him, she replied to herself, "Unless it's a brown recluse, it won't kill you, honey. Come watch this documentary on papermaking.'"  
"I kill bugs for women," he protested, pushing away a pang of resentment at her easy joking about the topic. As far as he was concerned, it was a cosmic joke that while he always had the urge to kick her dates out the door before they even got to her, _she_ usually pulled his dates aside to give them some laughing 'tips' on how to handle him.  
Not her concern, he reminded himself. She was pissed enough as it was at his reaction to Hammond. "And for men, for that matter," he managed to say lightly. "Did you know Logan's afraid of silverfish? He squealed like a little girl when he saw one in the conference room last week."  
"And you got rid of it for him?"  
"Well, yeah. I needed to work in there, and his whimpering was distracting."  
She burst out laughing and slung an arm around his neck, pressing her cheek to his in an almost-hug. "Ah, the great Detective Goren . . . my hero!"  
He tried to give her a dirty look, but a smile broke through. "Stop making fun of my efficiency and watch the show, Eames. There'll be a quiz on this later."  
"Oh yeah?" she shot back easily. "Then I'll just have to butter up the teacher if I don't remember the answers."  
"Plague, Eames."  
"Yes, dear." 


	6. A lazy Saturday

A warm tongue lapping at his face woke Bobby up the next morning. Blinking, he sat up straight and pushed the dog off his lap, trying to remember what had led to him falling asleep on his couch. A quick mental survey of his body answered that question within seconds; his left arm was asleep and there was a blonde head resting on it.

Blonde hair . . . Eames, then. Danielle had dark hair. It was hard to believe that he and his partner had both managed to pass out sitting up, though. Actually, it was unusual that he'd passed out at all, especially in her presence, but he supposed fatigue had finally caught up with him. The more difficult question was, why hadn't she woken him up, or at least shoved him to the other end of the couch so she could watch TV in peace?

Yawning, he slipped a hand between her head and his arm and lifted it up so he could extract the numb extremity, then laid it back down against the back of the couch and shifted to the side so he could turn to look at her without bumping into her.

The last thing he remembered was telling her about about how systematic the geographic spread of the plague was; he must have dozed off after that. Man, was he so boring that he was even putting _himself _to sleep these days? He was never going to live this down, he thought with a slight smile as he watched her sleep.

She must have been exhausted, too, to have let herself fall asleep on his shoulder instead of just waking him up and heading back home. If she'd been that tired, why had she walked all the way to his apartment in the first place?

He wondered if this counted as "sleeping with" his partner, then decided that, given the strict NYPD regulations on the subject, he probably didn't want to know. At least he knew who she _wasn't _sleeping with: Chris Hammond. No, she'd left Hammond with a "thank you," or perhaps a kiss, and then she'd come to spend the night with _him_.

"Mmph," the object of his thoughts mumbled sleepily, picking up her head and rubbing her eyes. "Why the hell am I asleep sitting up on your couch, Bobby?"

"Plague," he supplied. "We must have fallen asleep while we were watching the documentary."

"Oh." Sighing, she rolled her neck, trying to work out the stiffness her sleeping position had caused. "Ugh, next time wake me up and I'll sleep on the floor or something. At least that way I won't have a stiff neck and -" Mid-roll, she caught sight of his face and abruptly stopped, giving him a curious look. "You look way too happy this morning. Should I be worried?"

He immediately tried to affect a more serious look. "Uh, no," he managed, easing a little more away from her. "It's the weekend; why shouldn't I be happy?"

"Riiight," she drawled, giving him a knowing look. "What time is it, anyway?"

"About eight. We somehow managed to sleep late, even scrunched up on the couch."

"Mmm." She looked down at the dog, who had planted himself on the floor in front of her and was giving both of them a slightly desperate look. "He needs to go out."

"You going to head home, then?"

Stretching, she yawned widely, then grinned at him. "Oh, I don't know. It's Saturday; I've got nowhere better to be. What do you say we take the dog for a walk and get breakfast while we're out?" A quick glance down at herself, and she smiled sheepishly. "You might need to lend me a t-shirt, though. Even if this blouse wasn't dirty, I think it's a little too low-cut for a morning stroll."

Before he could stop them, his eyes tried to verify her statement. Now that she mentioned it, it _was _a little revealing. Had she worn that all day yesterday and he had somehow managed not to notice it?

"I was wearing a sweater over it," she explained, once again guessing the direction of his thoughts. "I figured Deakins wouldn't be too happy about me wearing something so revealing around the office . . . and the rest of the guys on the squad would be a little _too _happy about it."

"You're probably right," he acknowledged, nodding as he stood up. "I'll go get you a shirt."

* * *

"So," he said casually half an hour later, keeping one eye on the dog and the other on his breakfast as they sat outside a small cafe, "what did you do on your date last night?"

She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth and gave him a skeptical look. "You sure you want me to answer that?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Sighing, she ate the bite of omelet that had been on its way to her mouth, then laid down her fork. "Because you don't like Chris and you didn't want me to go out with him, remember? It seems a little odd for you to be interested in details now."

"I'm interested," he said simply, eyes on his waffles.

"Ok, if you say so." Leaning back in her chair, she took a sip of coffee, then directed a steady look at him as she began to describe her night. "He took me to this little Italian place called Bella Ragazza for dinner, and proceeded to show off by speaking to the waiter in Italian. Then -"

"Showing off?" he interrupted, wondering if that was what she thought of his language skills, too. "How do you know he wasn't just being polite to the waiter by speaking his language?"

"Because he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye as he was talking to the guy, like he was trying to gauge my reaction," she said with a slight smile. "Not to mention that it was only after I mentioned to him how many languages you speak that he got the urge."

Bobby hadn't been expecting that one, and for a second, he just looked at her blankly. "Why were you telling him about how many languages I speak?"

Shrugging, she reached for her fork again and went to work on the remainder of her omelet, mumbling between bites, "He wanted to know what work was like for me. I couldn't explain that without explaining you."

" 'Explaining me'?"

"Well, as much as someone like you can be explained," she allowed, eyes twinkling with amusement at his uneasy reaction. "Don't worry; you know I wouldn't say anything bad about you."

"Hmm." Looking away from her but trying to disguise the fact that he was doing it, he leaned over and held out a piece of waffle to the dog. "C'mere, boy."

"Bobby," she said calmly, waiting for him to sit up again. "Are you interested in the dog, or are you interested in me?"

Clearing his throat self-consciously, he straightened up. "Sorry. Uh, what did you do after dinner?"

"Oh, we went back to his place and had wild, kinky sex."

His head snapped up and he stared at her. "_What_?"

"Well, _that _woke you up," she said, smirking. "Are you going to pay attention to me now?"

Realizing that she'd mentioned sex with Hammond only to shock him, he scowled. "I've _been_ paying attention."

"Sure you have." She sighed. "After dinner, we went to the Met. He wanted to see an exhibit on Tibetan armor. It was ok."

"Just ok?"

"Well, I mean . . . Tibetan armor?" she said dubiously. "There were exhibits on Ancient Egyptian medicine and Indonesian textiles . . . and he wanted to see Tibetan armor?"

"Maybe he's a military buff," he said shrugging.

"Yeah, well," she said with a wry smile, "I think I'd even rather see those shapeless-blob paintings _you_ like than a bunch of helmets and swords."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." She paused to eat the last bite of her breakfast, then shrugged. "At least the blobs are multicolored."

"But you're going to see him again?" he couldn't keep himself from asking. "Even though he's got bad taste in art?"

Leaning back in her chair, she glanced down at the dog, who was sitting by her foot and panting happily up at her. "I might. I mean, as dates go, he wasn't bad, and he had no way of knowing whether I was interested in old armor or not."

"Mmm," he murmured, doing his best to sound disinterested. "You usually have higher standards than that for your dates."

She kicked his shin playfully under the table. "Oh, give it up, Bobby. You got me to admit his date-planning skills aren't as good as his looks; content yourself with that."

Surprised by that, he smiled at her before he could remind himself to be nonchalant. "You're stubborn, Eames, you know that?"

"Yeah, I think you've mentioned that to me once or twice. Come on," she said, picking up the check the waiter had left on their table before Bobby could grab for it. "I'll get this, and then let's head back to my place."

"Your place?" he echoed, wondering, not for the first time since he woke up, why she was in no rush to get rid of him today.

"Well," she said, giving him a teasing look as she stood up, "unless you've got something better to do than hang out with me?"

"Well no, but . . ."

"Ok, then." She picked up her purse, gave him a pat on the cheek, and turned to head into the cafe. "You're good for relaxation. I'll meet you out front in a couple minutes."

"Uh, sure." As she disappeared into the restaurant, he looked down at the dog, who was pawing at his pant leg and whining. "Well, looks like we're stuck with each other for a while, little guy."

The dog dropped back down to all fours and started to gnaw on the cuff of Bobby's jeans.

Groaning, he stood up, unwrapping the dog's leash from his chair leg. "I don't know what she sees in you . . . but at least you're better than him."


	7. A fourth body

They had hardly settled down at their desks Monday morning before Deakins approached, looking about as unhappy as either detective had ever seen him. "We should've stayed in bed this morning, guys."

Goren and Eames exchanged a beleaguered look. "Why's that, sir?" Eames asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Because your guy left you a present last night." With that, he tossed a call-out slip onto her desk, sighed, and left the two sitting there, staring at it.

"_You_ look," Eames said, using one finger to push the form toward Goren. "You know, just when I've spent a weekend actually getting caught up on my sleep and de-stressing . . ."

A look at the sheet of paper told Goren that her resentment was well-founded. "Another body. Smack in the middle of Strawberry Fields. This guy's got balls of steel."

"Yeah, well so do I, according to a couple ex-boyfriends, so he better watch out. Is there an ID on the body yet?"

"Nope."

Sighing, she drained the last of her coffee and slammed her mug back down on her desk. "Well, let's go and get this over with."

* * *

"Balls of steel, huh?" he asked thoughtfully, glancing down at her as they crossed the park toward Strawberry Fields, an open meadow in Central Park named in honor of John Lennon.

She managed an almost-grin in response to that. "They're _ex_-boyfriends for a reason. Mostly the guys who thought it was cool to date a woman cop . . . for a little while. I'm not as good at staying friends with my exes as you are."

"They're probably just embarrassed that you're tougher than them."

"Maybe. Hey, speaking of exes," she added, elbowing him as they stepped onto the grass, "your girlfriend's here again."

He looked around the field, easily spotting Danielle, whose lavender shirt was the only splash of color in the group of blue-clothed police and technicians who surrounded the scene. "Play nice, would you?"

Snorting, she angled her path away from him, toward the tightest knot of people, and told him over her shoulder, "I'm not the one who was being a bitch last time, thank you very much. Put a leash on her before I get over there."

Before he could respond to that - although he wasn't really sure how he _could _have responded to that - she was out of earshot, striding the rest of the way across the field, all business. With a sigh, he made his way more slowly toward the body and the medical examiner hovering over it. "We have to stop meeting like this, Danielle."

"And a good morning to you too," she said archly. "Took you guys long enough to get here."

Shrugging, he crouched down next to her. "We just got the call twenty minutes ago. Anyway," he went on, nodding to the body, "who've we got today?"

Danielle reached out and used two gloved fingers to pull a plastic card out of the back pocket of the jeans that still covered the lower half of the body. "Another school girl. This one's older than the last, though." She handed him the card. "Thirty."

Hastily pulling on a glove, he took it from her and turned it over, giving it a quick examination. "Hillary Viernes. Another CUNY grad student. That's an interesting coincidence."

"Maybe he's settling into a groove," she suggested.

"Doubtful. He stripped the last one except for the bra," he pointed out, reaching out to touch the victim's jeans. "This one, the bra's gone but the pants are still here. Did you check her?"

"Yeah. I don't know why I covered her up again. Reflex, I guess. She was raped. Same way."

Goren cocked his head to the side, studying the body. "Were the pants up when you got here?"

"Yep. Up and buttoned."

"So he re-dressed her after he finished," he mused. "That's not like him."

"It's not?" she asked curiously, stripping off a glove and using his shoulder to balance as she stood up. "How do you know?"

He straightened up next to her, then promptly bent over the body again. "Because covering the victim back up is usually a sign of guilt, or respect, or both. Serial killers . . . aren't known for those qualities."

"No kidding," she sniffed. "I can't see anyone who just slit a girl's throat from ear to ear caring whether she's found naked or not."

"That's my point. Have you been able to identify the type of knife he uses?"

Copying his posture, she bent forward until she could see his face. "Lacerations are shit for blade typing, you know that."

"I know, puncture wounds are much better. I was just hoping you got an imprint anyway. You're good at your job."

"Hah." She patted his cheek teasingly, then straightened up. "Thanks for the compliment, hon, but I still can't give you a make on the knife."

Clearing his throat, he took a step back from both the body and her, using his upper arm to absently wipe at his cheek where she'd touched him. "Uh, that's ok. Is there anything else different on this girl from what was on the other three at their scenes?"

"Not on the outside. I'll have to let you know about the rest." Without warning, she lifted her hand to his cheek again, this time using her thumb to wipe at it. "You've got something on your . . ."

A throat cleared from behind him.

Danielle, who was facing the source of the noise, slowly lowered her hand and smiled. "Good morning, Detective."

"Apparently it is," Eames said dryly, stepping around so she could see her partner's face. "Are you two about done here, or should I go try to pump the detectives some more?"

"I think . . ." He stopped and wiped at his face with his arm again. "I think we've covered everything you've got so far, right Danielle?"

She crossed her arms and sighed. "Yeah, I guess we have."

He glanced down at his partner, noting her that she looked unhappy with him, then looked back up at Danielle. "Ok. Thanks. Call us when you have results. Eames, you ready?"

"Whenever you are," she said coolly. "I'll meet you in the car." And with that, she turned her back on him and started walking back to the SUV.

"Touchy little thing," Danielle said thoughtfully, returning her attention to Goren, "isn't she?"

"She's efficient," he replied neutrally. "She doesn't like to waste time once she's done with a scene." Well, that wasn't actually a notable quality of hers - he was usually the impatient one - but he didn't want to leave Danielle with a bad opinion of his partner. That would make life more difficult for everybody . . . especially him.

"Hmm," Danielle murmured noncommittally. "So, Bobby . . . you got any plans for tonight?"

He blinked. "Other than working late? No."

"Well," she said quietly, fingering the lapel of his suit jacket, "give me a call when you get home, ok? We could go out for a late dinner or something."

He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. "When I say late, I mean _late_, Danielle. Ten or eleven."

She brushed an imaginary speck of dust off him, then pulled her hand away, grinning. "Then we'll just have to make it a sleepover, won't we?"

"Uh, maybe. I'll let you know. I . . ." He glanced over his shoulder at the car, trying to spot his partner inside it. "I have to get going. Bye, Danielle." Moving quickly, before she could get out a protest, he turned and made for the relative safety of the car.

* * *

"Took you long enough," Eames said, turning to look at him when he slid into the passenger seat a minute later.

"Uh, yeah, sorry. She had a couple questions."

"I bet she did. Looked to me like she was 'questioning' what you've got under your clothes."

"Don't, Alex," he said tightly. "Let's head back."

"Yeah, fine." She started the engine and shifted the car into drive. "I'm just saying, it doesn't seem very appropriate for her to be all over you at a scene."

Goaded, he let out a mocking laugh. "Whatever authority you had to make that statement, you lost it this weekend when you went on a _date _with a _witness_. Remember that?"

"He was a _tipster_, Bobby, not a witness! And I didn't climb all over him in front of half the police in this city!"

"No, you just carried on a conversation with Liggitt about how 'gorgeous' he was in the middle of the squad room," he shot back.

"And even if talking about Chris in public was indiscrete, at least _I'm_ not the one of us sleeping with their indiscretion."

"Who says I'm sleeping with her?"

"Oh, come on, Bobby," she scoffed, looking away from the road to roll her eyes at him. "No one who hasn't already been to bed with you is going to touch you like she was."

"You do. You touch me and brush stuff off me all the time," he countered. "And no one thinks twice about it."

"That's different. I'm your partner. I don't have to sleep with you to know you well enough to touch you."

"Danielle _doesn't _know me that well!" he groaned, trying not to wonder how much worse this argument could get before she just stopped the car and hauled off and hit him. "She's just . . . aggressive."

"I noticed." Sighing, she shook her head and tried to tamp down her temper. "What did she want, anyway?"

"She . . ." _Why did she have to ask that? Out of all the possible questions . . . why that one? _he thought despairingly, knowing that a truthful answer would probably set her off again. "She wanted to know if I was busy tonight."

"Oh?" She stole a curious glance at him before returning her eyes to the road. "And what did you say?"

"I told her we were probably going to be working late."

"And she let you go with that?"

He sighed. "Do we really have to talk about this?"

"Obviously she didn't," she said, answering her own question. "And I told you all about my date, so I think you owe it to me to tell me about yours."

"That was all," he attempted, "really. She just said that even if it was late, I should still call her."

"Hah. Sounds like you'll be having company tonight. Remind me not to stay late if we end up working at your place."

"She's not going to just appear at the door of my apartment, Eames!"

"Ah, Bobby," she laughed, patting his knee, "you should never underestimate the determination of a predatory female. Don't put it past her to pick your lock and sneak into bed with you."

"Oh, wonderful," he sighed, dropping his head into his hands. "Now I'm going to stay awake all night listening for someone at the door."

"Or you could just let her in," she pointed out. "You _are _dating her, after all. She might think it's a little funny if you suddenly stop answering the door."

"I told you, I'm not 'dating' her. We've just been out a few times, is all. Besides, I may not even go out with her again. She's starting to irritate me."

"Oh, you know you love the attention," she scoffed, pulling into a parking spot in the One PP lot.

"No, I don't." When she just turned off the engine and didn't respond, he turned to look at her. "And I'd much rather spend an evening with you than her. Danielle . . . she would want to go out. With you, I don't even need to talk. With her, I have to keep her entertained."

Drawing in a slow breath, she met his eyes and smiled. "That's really sweet, Bobby." She checked her watch and grimaced. "We should head upstairs. So," she added as they unbuckled their seatbelts, "now that we've established that I'm your perfect girlfriend, except for the whole sex thing, can we call a truce about our love lives?"

Having trouble parsing that statement beyond the word "sex," he climbed out of the car and just stared at her. "Uh . . . sure."

"Good. Now," she said conversationally as they entered the building, "what should we get for lunch?"

Bobby just shook his head and kept walking.


	8. A new suit in the deck

When they had reached the eleventh floor and settled themselves at their desks, Eames reached for the phone. "I'm going to call Hammond and find out if this new girl's connected to his practice, too."

" 'Hammond'?" he echoed, raising his eyebrows at her sudden switch to using the guy's last name.

"Yes, 'Hammond.' You got a problem with that?"

"Nope."

"Good. I might have to hurt you if you did. " And with that, she tuned him out as she dialed Hammond's cell phone number and settled the phone against her ear.

He answered after three rings with a warm, if slightly out of breath, "Alex, hello!"

"Hello, yourself," she replied, trying not to let her partner see her smile. "You got a minute?"

"For you, sure. I've got a few minutes between patients right now."

"Great, thanks. Listen, could I run a name by you, and you tell me if it rings any bells?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. "There was another one killed."

It wasn't a question, and she didn't treat it like one. "You know I'm not going to talk about that, Chris. Now, do you want to hear the name or not?"

"Shoot," he ordered.

"Hillary Viernes."

"Uh . . ." She could hear his chair squeak as he leaned back in it, thinking. "I don't think we've ever had anyone by that name here."

_Shit_, she thought, almost able to feel their one good lead slip out of her hands. "Are you sure?"

"Well, I can ask around and try to confirm it for you, but I'm pretty good with names, and that one doesn't sound familiar."

Sighing heavily, she slumped back in her chair. "Ok. Well yeah, ask around, if you don't mind, and call me if anyone comes up with anything." She glanced at the phone's cradle, which was out of arm's reach now that she was slouching, and sighed again. "Look, Chris, I have to g-"

"Wait!"

The exclamation was a departure from his usual cool conversational style, and she stopped with the phone an inch from her ear. "What?"

Hammond cleared his throat. "Are you sure you don't want any help with things? I mean, I could probably help you with a profile . . ."

She flicked a glance at Goren, who was examining his fingernails and studiously ignoring her. "I appreciate the offer, but my partner's got that covered. Now, I really have to go. I'll talk to you soon, ok?"

He replied with a distant, "Yeah, sure. Ok," and proceeded to hang up the phone in her ear.

"Yeah, goodbye to you too," she said to the empty line, then let out an annoyed breath and leaned forward to replace the phone on its base. "We're screwed, Bobby."

Moving his eyes away from his hand, he spared her a glance. "He break up with you?"

"No," she snapped, giving him a sour look. Then, propping her elbows up on the desk and resting her chin in her hands, she went on, "Although he did hang up on me when I said I couldn't talk."

"Hmm."

"Stop that."

"What?"

"You're smiling!"

"I'm not allowed to smile now?"

"Not at me getting hung up on, you're not. Now, do you want to hear _why_ we're screwed, or are you just going to take my word for it?"

Obediently clearing the smile off his face, he shrugged. "He's never heard of her, judging from your side of the conversation."

"He's . . . damn it, I hate it when you do that."

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"Ok, I'm not," he agreed easily. "Was there anything else he had to say - about the _case_, that is ?"

Narrowing her eyes threateningly, she glared at him for a few seconds until she was sure she'd adequately communicated her displeasure, then smiled slightly and shrugged. "He offered to help with a profile."

"Ah. That was the 'my partner's got that covered,' I presume?"

"Yeah."

Dropping his eyes, he picked up a pen and uncapped it. "He's trying to insert himself into the investigation. You know that's -"

"He's a shrink! I don't think it's that unusual for him to offer his services to catch a guy like this. When he starts popping up at scenes and trying to get information out of us, _then _you can put your little check mark next to 'interactions with police' and say he's trying to insert himself."

He re-capped the pen and put it down. "I'm just -"

"You two," Deakins called from his office doorway, waving a hand in their direction. "I need to talk to you. Inside." The command was accompanied with a matching jerk of his head, directing them into his office.

Neither of them had been expecting a summons, and now they exchanged looks, each silently accusing the other of having done something to get them both in trouble.

"_Now_, Detectives. The staring contest can wait."

* * *

The captain's office wasn't empty when the two detectives made their wary entrance. Three men, all in dark suits, were scattered around the room, varying degrees of discomfort showing on their faces. One, a stocky man with silver hair, was surveying the premises with casual interest, seeming to have hardly noticed the newcomers. 

The second was a tall, middle-aged man built like a football player whose sartorial splendor looked like it could give Goren a run for his money. His hair was graying at the temples, but he appeared to be a few years younger than the first man, and he was standing with his arms crossed, scowling defensively and looking as though he expected to be attacked at any second.

The third man was significantly younger than the other two, and his age was reflected in his uneasy behavior. Where the first man looked cool and collected, and the second looked hyper-alert, the last looked slightly dumbstruck by his surroundings.

"Goren, Eames," Deakins said, waving the detectives to chairs, "I'd like you to meet the core of your new task force."

Eames didn't bother to smother her groan at that. Task forces never worked well, as far as she was concerned, especially when the participants were strangers, as these new men were to her and Goren.

Deakins pinned her with a hard look, pointing his pen at her threateningly. "Don't give me that, Detective. You should have seen this coming. You and Goren are good, but the bodies are piling up, and -"

"Who are they?" Goren interrupted impatiently, turning in his chair to scrutinize the visitors.

The eldest of the men cleared his throat politely and stepped forward. "I'm Special Agent Ted Kratzer," he said, pointing to himself. "And these are Special Agents Eddie Straub and Tony D'Argenzio," he went on, pointing first to the football player and then to the younger man.

"FBI," Eames summarized coolly. "What'd we do to merit three of you at once?"

"The Chief of D's is getting nervous," Deakins explained. "Four dead middle-class girls aren't as easy to overlook as a couple of dead hookers. His words," he added hastily as Eames opened her mouth, "not mine. But he's got a point. People are going to be screaming bloody murder when it gets out that these deaths are connected. I, for one, welcome the opportunity to share the heat with another agency."

"That's not exactly how we like our presence to be justified," said Kratzer, a hint of a smile playing at his lips, "but hey, whatever works for you guys. We're not here to take over your investigation, Detectives. We're support staff."

"Investigative Support?" Goren asked him, looking slightly more interested. "Or just support?"

"Yes, and yes. Straub and I are BAU. D'Argenzio came along for the ride."

D'Argenzio colored slightly, looking like he wished he could fade into the corner.

Eames, noticing his discomfort and wondering why tact wasn't part of the FBI training program, offered the young man a smile. "They've got you apprenticed to the big guys, huh? You must be on your way up."

"Uh, hopefully, ma'am," he replied, turning redder but relaxing slightly.

"Ugh, call me 'Eames,' or 'Alex'. Anything but 'ma'am' . . . that makes me feel like my mother."

"Sorry."

Giving him a smile of forgiveness, she fought the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. "Ok, so if you guys are our 'support' . . . what exactly does that mean you'll be doing?"

"Profiling, I assume," Goren filled in before the agent could respond.

"Got it in one!" Straub announced, breaking his self-imposed silence. "Maybe this won't be so bad after all, Teddy."

Kratzer spared the younger man a glance and sighed, then looked back at the detectives and said with a shrug, "Seven hours on I-95, crammed in a car with two other guys, doesn't do great things for anyone's temper."

"Apparently not," Eames said with a smile, finding herself charmed by the older man, who managed to be at once both grandfatherly and acerbic.

"Hey, two out of three," Deakins spoke up from behind his desk, grinning at her. Then, looking at the FBI agents, he explained, "Eames is our resident hardass. Once you get her to come around, you're in, and so far you seem to be doing pretty good. Well, at least two of you."

Straub looked down at the woman who, to him, appeared to be just a slight, pixie-faced blonde, and raised his eyebrows dubiously. "Hardass?"

She gave him a predatory grin. "Try me."

"I'd recommend you don't," Deakins told him. "Now, I think the conference room is empty if you guys want to set up camp in there. I'll be in as soon as I talk myself out of jumping out a window," he added sarcastically, making a show of sifting through the towering pile of phone messages on his desk.

Eames and Goren looked at each other for a moment, and then she stood up and turned to Deakins. "Yeah, sure."

Sighing, Goren stood up beside her and motioned for the FBI agents to follow him as trailed his partner out of the room. "Eames, who made the coffee this morning?"

"Beats the hell out of me. It's probably gone by now anyway," she replied without turning her head as she led the way across the squad room. "But _you_ are notmaking the next batch. The FBI'll be pissed if we kill their guys on the first day."

"Yeah," Kratzer spoke up from behind her, "save that for after you've got the profiles out of us. But don't worry, we're used to sludge masquerading as coffee. Years of experience." He patted his belly as if congratulating it on its toughness, then looked over his shoulder at the other two men. "Although D'Argenzio, you might want to watch it."

"Oh, don't worry," D'Argenzio assured him casually. "You've been out too long to remember how crappy the coffee in the dorms at Quantico is, but believe me when I say I'll be fine here."

Straub winced in apparent sympathy. "He's got a point, Ted."

"Oh, the hell with ya both," Kratzer snorted, flipping a dismissive hand at the over man over his shoulder.

"Conference room," Eames announced, pointing a thumb toward the room over her shoulder after allowing a moment's silence to see if the agents would continue their amusing argument. "Home sweet home for the foreseeable future."

The three men took in the room. "We've seen worse," Straub told her. "Although you look like you're short on chairs. And," he added, looking around the group, "there's only one of you four I'm willing to let sit on my lap."

"You wish," Eames said with a smirk. "Now let's get to work, shall we?"

* * *

Endnote: the "BAU" is the Behavioral Analysis Unit, the FBI's current name for their profiling division.  



	9. A latenight mistake

A/N: Dude...finals week...evil... It'll all be over Tuesday night, and then maybe I can get back to writing stuff that actually has a plot

* * *

When, two take-out meals and countless cups of coffee later, the FBI agents had departed for the night, Goren and Eames simultaneously slumped back in their chairs and sighed. "I feel like I just took an exam I wasn't sure I was going to pass," Eames mumbled into her hands as she scrubbed them over her face. " 'Tell us again how the bra strap was twisted,'" she mimicked. " 'Explain the arrangements of the victims' possessions around their bodies, Detectives.' I swear, having to answer to just _one_ of you is about all I can take." 

Goren just looked at her for a second and then laid down his pen. "I didn't ask you any of those things, Eames."

"Not _today, _no. But you and those guys obviously went to the same school somewhere along the line. God, my eyes are killing me."

"You do look exhausted," he acknowledged. "You sleeping ok?"

She dropped her hands and stared at him incredulously. "You're kidding me, right? Practically every morning I have to go out to see another woman with a cut throat, and you're asking me if I'm _sleeping_?"

"Sorry."

Sighing, she shook her head. "Don't apologize. I'm just bitching at you because you're the easiest target."

"I don't mind. Better me than Deakins - that'd get you in a little more trouble."

"Yeah, I guess." Yawning, she reached forward to hit the power button on her computer. "Maybe I'm lucky and I'm tired enough to actually sleep tonight."

"Maybe." He glanced around at the almost-empty squad room, then looked back at her. "You going to head home, then?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "You?"

"Uh . . ." He checked his watch and shrugged. "It's not even ten yet. I think I might hang around and see what else I can get done."

Lifting her hands off her desk helplessly and then dropping them again with a slap, she looked concernedly at him. "You don't need to stay, Bobby. You know there's nothing to do until tomorrow morning."

"I'm not tired," he said shortly, looking at his watch again and wondering how late he would need to stay to avoid Danielle's calls.

"Ok, if you say so." She reached under her desk for her bag, then, seeming to reconsider, straightened up and offered him a tentative smile. "You want me to stay? At least that way you could have someone to bounce ideas off of."

"No," he said quickly, dropping his eyes back to the paperwork on his desk. "You just told me how tired you are; go home and get some sleep."

Unconvinced by his attempt at casualness, she gave that a second's thought. "You're just as tired as I am and you know it. Why do you want to hang around here, really? Got a date?"

"No."

He'd said that a little too hastily, and her eyes widened as she remembered the events of that morning. "That M.E.? Don't tell me you just lied to me about staying here so you didn't have to admit you caved in to her."

"I . . . no," he protested. "It has nothing to do with Danielle. I just want to . . . get some more work done."

She scrutinized his face for a minute, trying to pick out any signs that he was lying and finding none. "Ok, you just want to get work done, fine. But if you stay here alone you're going to be asleep at your desk within an hour. Are you _sure _you don't want me to stay with you? I'll poke you with my pen every time you conk out, if you do the same for me."

"You don't have to stay, Eames. You know I've done this before."

"Yeah, and every time you do it, I find you the next morning zonked out in the break room with a burnt pot of coffee next to you. Not the best way to go through life, Bobby, trust me. I'm going to stay."

"But you . . ."

"So I'll be the one to conk out in the break room this time, if I need to. Don't argue with me."

Sighing, he opened one of his desk drawers in search of a highlighter he knew he'd stashed in there and shrugged. "Ok. If you want to stay, stay. But you're making the coffee."

"Like there was a chance I was going to let you make it and kill us both?" She grinned and held out a hand for the file folder lying on his desk. "Share the wealth, partner."

* * *

It was nearly midnight when the cell phone Goren had left on his desk when he went in search of a new supply of coffee began to ring. Startled out of her semi-hypnotic study of a preliminary autopsy report, Eames jerked her head up, intending to order her partner to answer the thing, then blinked when she saw his empty chair and remembered he was gone, leaving her alone in the squad room.

The phone kept ringing, and with a sigh, she realized that the fact that it was his cell meant that it was probably case-related. With a tired sigh, she reached out and dragged the phone to her desk, checking the caller ID in the hopes that she was wrong and she could toss the thing into the wastebasket instead of answering it. The number on the display was the number of the Medical Examiner's office. "Friggin' doctors. Why can't they sleep like normal people?" she mumbled, ignoring the irony of that statement.

It rang again and so, resolving to make him answer her phone for the next week, she picked it up and opened it. "Yeah, Goren's phone. Are you done with one of the bodies?"

There was silence for a moment, and then a female voice said, "Uh . . . you said this is Goren's phone? Who is this?"

"Goren's looking for coffee. I'm his partner," she replied impatiently. "What can I do for you this late at night?"

"Oh," the woman sniffed. "Well, I called to speak to _Bobby_. This is Danielle Matthews. I'm sure he'll want to talk to me if you bring him the phone."

Eames groaned quietly. This was all she needed. It was the middle of the night, she was exhausted, she had images of rape victims circling her head, and now her partner's girlfriend was calling and demanding to speak with him. "Yeah, well, he's busy. Can I take a message for you?" she said shortly, wanting nothing more than to get rid of the annoying woman and return to the mindless work on her desk.

"No. Like I said, he'll want to speak to me if you give him the phone."

"Look, Dr. Matthews," Eames sighed, wondering if it was possible for a headache to be induced this quickly, "I have no idea where he is. We ran out of coffee in the break room and he went to go find some more downstairs. I can have him call you back, or you can call him back later. Which do you want to do?"

"Coffee?" Matthews echoed. "He's planning on being there for a while, then."

"I guess. He doesn't dictate his schedule to me, but I'd say it's a safe assumption."

"And you?"

"Excuse me?" she asked in confusion, too drowsy to follow whatever logical leaps the other woman was making. "And me what?"

"You'll be there with him?" Matthews clarified tightly.

The doctor was jealous, Eames suddenly realized, barely able to swallow a laugh at the thought. "Yeah, I guess I will. Someone's got to keep him awake."

There was an audible breath on the other end of the line. "Well, you remind him we had plans for tonight!" Danielle ordered petulantly.

_Not according to him, you don't,_ Alex thought, closing her eyes and shaking her head in amused disbelief as she recalled Goren's insistence from earlier in the day that he was tired of Matthews. "Yeah, I will. I'm sure he'll get back to you just as soon as he can."

Danielle sniffed haughtily. "Make sure you write down my message. Good night, Detective."

"Night." Wondering if her partner was typically available for midnight phone calls from the women he dated, Eames snapped the phone closed and gave it a shove so it slid across her desk onto his, then let her head drop back tiredly.

"You look like you need this," said a voice from behind her.

She opened her eyes in time to see a long arm snake around her and place a large cup of coffee from a 24-hour deli down the block in front of her. Eyeing the sizeable drink, she smiled her pleasure and said without turning around, "There are times when I think I love you, you know that?"

Goren moved from behind her and set his own coffee down on his desk a little too hard. "Excuse me?"

"How much sugar is in here?" she asked, gesturing to her cup.

He blinked. "Uh, six sp-"

"I rest my case," she interrupted lightly. "It must be love. But anyway, you got a call while you were gone. I'm supposed to give you a message."

"A call from who?"

Purposely avoiding his eyes, she cracked open the lid of her coffee and took a deep breath, inhaling its scent. "Your girlfriend."

Goren stared at her. "Danielle?"

"You got more than one?"

"Very funny. Why did you pick up my phone?"

She shrugged. "ID said it was the M.E.s office. I thought it was about one of the victims. She wanted me to remind you that you had plans with her for the night." Lowering her voice and giving him a conspiratorial grin, she added, "Sorry, but I don't think she's very happy with you right now."

"Why? What did you say to her?" he demanded.

Eames raised an eyebrow. "I told her we were at your apartment doing shots and playing strip poker," she teased. "Come _on_, Bobby. I told her you went to hunt down some coffee, and she blew a gasket because that meant you were going to stay here for a while more."

"Oh." Fiddling with the pen that lay on his desk, he dropped his eyes. "What did she say to _you_?"

"Other than ordering me to go find you and give you the phone, because she was _sure _you'd want to talk to her once you knew it was her? Not much. Basically just expressed the fact that she's pissed you're here instead of with her." She took a tentative sip of her hot coffee and groaned happily. "I told you you should have gone home. Just think, instead of being stuck here with me, you could be getting la-"

"Shut up," he grumbled, throwing the nearest small projectile, a sugar packet, at her.

"Don't even try to tell me you'd rather be at work," she shot back with a smirk.

"I wasn't going to. I was going to say that I already told you that I'm not interested in seeing Danielle anymore."

"Uh-huh." Leaning back in her chair with deliberate casualness, she mock-toasted him with her coffee. "Don't you think you should be telling _her _that, instead of me? That way you wouldn't need me to field her calls."

Shrugging, he pretended to concentrate on his desk. "We're busy tonight. I'll talk to her some other time."

"You're avoiding telling her, Bobby, admit it. Well, either that or you're lying to me about not wanting to see her."

"We have four murders to deal with right now, Eames. Danielle has four bodies to autopsy. The discussion can wait."

"Wuss."

"Drop it."

Raising her chin defiantly, she shook her head. "I still don't see why you want to break it off with her in the first place. I mean, ok, she's pushy, but she's obviously got the hots for you. You might as well take advantage of it."

"Since when are you concerned with my love life?" he asked, looking up to scowl at her.

"Well, she's in my face as often as she's in yours lately," she pointed out. "I think I have a right to notice things about her. Besides, what kind of guy are you to turn down an easy lay?"

"Damn it, Alex . . ."

"What?"

Slapping his pen down on the desk, he pushed back his chair and stood up. "As I've told you more than once, you have no idea if I've 'laid' her at all, so I'll thank you to keep your advice to yourself."

Still smirking, she copied his movement and got to her feet across from him. "You made fun of me for going out with Chris Hammond. Why don't I get the same right?"

"I didn't -"

"And besides, like _I _told _you_, it's obvious from the way she acts that you've slept with her."

Perilously close to the end of his temper, he stalked around their desks toward her."I haven't slept with her!"

"Why would I even care if you have or not?" she sniffed obtusely, crossing her arms in front of her as he stopped only inches away. "I'm just telling you what I see."

Goren was silent for a long moment, studying her face, and then relaxed, a slight smile on his lips. "No."

"No? 'No,' what?"

" 'No,' you're not just telling me what you see." He took another step forward, backing her up against her desk, then put his hands flat on it and leaned down so his eyes were level with hers. "You're trying to get reassurance from me."

"Hah!" she spat, fighting the instinct to lean back farther to get away from him. "About what?"

His smile turned into a knowing smirk. "About Danielle. About my being more interested in you than her." A pause. "About how if you're not getting any, you think I shouldn't be either."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed suspiciously. "That's ridiculous. I'm the one who's telling you to go after her."

"You have to pay lip service to that, or else you come out looking petty."

"Are you saying I'm being petty?" she demanded, giving him a shove in an attempt to get him away from her. "You're really starting to piss me off, Bobby. Back off."

"Literally?" he asked softly, leaning closer to her and trying to make her flinch away. "Or figuratively?"

"Both!" she said, giving him another push that failed to move him. "Would you stop it?"

"If you admit it."

"Admit _what_?"

"That you're jealous," he told her smugly. "You hate seeing women hang around me."

She snorted derisively. "That's because they get in the way at crime scenes and distract you, not because I'm jealous. Besides, what would I be jealous of? It's not like you've ever -" Aghast at what had almost come out of her mouth, she broke off abruptly and quickly pushed at his shoulders again. "It's one o'clock in the morning, Bobby. Why the hell are we fighting about this?"

"Because you wouldn't let the topic of Danielle drop," he replied. "I'm not the one who started this."

"Well _I'm _certainly not the one who just cornered my partner at her desk and is trying to intimidate her into shutting up."

"And obviously it isn't working."

"Damn right, it isn't working!"

He gave her a lazy grin and lowered his head closer to hers. "I've never been able to intimidate you. That's one of the reasons I like working with you."

This time she did reflexively lean backwards, arching her body back over the desk in an attempt to get her head away from his. " 'One' of them? What are the others?"

Noticing that her eyes were turned away, he took the opportunity to take in her lithe form. "You want me to list them?"

"I want you to back off."

"I admitted that I was concerned about you and Hammond," he said, earning himself a confused look for the topic change. "You guessed, and I admitted it. So why are you refusing to admit that you don't like the idea of me and Danielle?"

"I couldn't care less about Danielle!"

"Then why were you so annoyed with me this morning?" he pressed, sensing a crack in her armor.

She glowered at him. "I don't care about Danielle Matthews in particular. I care about women who run around in low V-necks and heels at crime scenes and take your attention away from what you're supposed to be paying attention to because they're so . . . so . . . _done up_. The Matthews woman just happens to be the worst of them."

Lowering his brows, he pulled back slightly and looked at her thoughtfully. "You usually look pretty 'done up,' yourself. I've seen you wearing V-necks and heels."

"That's different. I don't have a huge chest that I put on display, and I only wear heels because I'm short. I'm not putting myself on display when I wear that stuff."

Eyes hooded, he raised an eyebrow. "Maybe not consciously, you aren't, but I can promise you, the men still enjoy the display."

Letting out a growl of annoyance, she attacked him the only way she could in her current contorted position: she hooked one of her legs around the back of one of his and gave it a jerk, making his knee buckle and him fall forward.

_Should have thought that one out, Alex_, her unconscious pointed out just before his weight hit her. _Now you're going to end up with bruises all over, and nothing to show for them_.

Instinctively, he tightened his hands around the edge of the desk in an attempt to keep from hitting her, but the forward momentum was too much and before either of them could do anything else, he had fallen against her, pinning her to the desk.

"Get . . . off!" she wheezed, pushing at his arm. "You're . . . crushing me!" He shifted his weight slightly, allowing her to breathe, but didn't stand up. "Bobby, come on," she attempted again, wedging her elbows under her and half-sitting up so she could look into his face, when it became obvious that he wasn't going to move. "This isn't the most comfortable place to -" Her words ended on a squeak as, without warning, he pressed a hand against the middle of her back, supporting part of her weight, and touched his lips to her.

Stunned by the action, she couldn't gather enough of her wits to react for a long second before she tried to squirm out from under his weight and push him off her at the same time, not remembering, however, to pull away from his tentative kiss. "Bobby, you -"

He abruptly released her and, holding himself stiff, backed away. "I'm . . . sorry. That wasn't . . . I'm sorry, Eames."

Struggling up to a sitting position, she stared at him and said slowly, "Well, as a way to end a fight, that's pretty effective. What the hell just happened here, Bobby?"

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and turned away, running a hand through his hair. "I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have . . . well, I mean, obviously you know I shouldn't have . . . it just . . ." Stealing a quick glance at her and then turning away again, he sighed. "I wasn't thinking."

"You kissed me because you weren't thinking?"

"I . . . more or less."

"More or less?"

"Look, I'm sorry, ok?" he snapped, putting a little more space between them. "It won't happen again."

"No?" She slipped off the desk and stood up, taking a moment to stretch her neck, which was protesting its former cramped position. "How do you know you're not going to do it again the next time we fight?"

There was amusement in her voice, and he bristled at it. "I don't make a habit of tackling you when we're fighting. This just . . . happened, and it won't happen again."

She was silent for a second, then nodded. "Well, I guess that's probably true. You're pretty good at pulling away from people who make you uncomfortable."

"It's not you that makes me uncomfortable," he said, still not looking at her. "You know that. This was . . . improper of me. I'm probably lucky you didn't kill me."

Smiling in spite of herself, she shook her head and took a cautious step toward him. "You'd have to do more than just kiss me to get me to kill you. I like having you around too much to bump you off you over something small like this."

Not comforted by that, he retreated another step and turned away from her. "It's late. We should probably head home." Then, without giving her time to respond, he slipped past her to grab his binder off his desk, then backed hastily away toward the elevators. "I'll, uh, see you in the morning, Eames."

By the time she opened her mouth to reply, he was gone.


	10. A magic profile

Eames set down her bag and slid into her chair with a pained grimace the next morning, trying to keep her back from coming into contact with the back of the chair.

Goren looked up at the movement, quickly looked away again in embarrassment, and then did a double take as he processed the expression on her face. "Are you ok?"

"No," she grumbled, twisting one arm around to rub at the sore area. "I have the mother of all bruises on my back, thanks to a certain someone and his intimidation tactics."

The only thing he could think of to say to that was an uncomfortable "Sorry," before he returned his attention to the stack of papers on his desk. "The tip line's been ringing off the hook. These," he said, tapping the pile, "all came in last night."

"Yeah?" she replied skeptically, pulling the top page off the stack to look at it. "And how many of these 'tips' say the killer is Jack the Ripper or the President?"

Goren nodded reluctantly. "Probably most of them. But it's still more than we had yesterday."

"Oh yeah?" She made a show of looking around. "What _I_ want to know is, where are the magic profilers who are supposed to be solving this case for us?"

"You better watch it, Detective," said a male voice from behind her. She turned to find Straub balancing a box of donuts in one hand and smirking at her. "Or we 'magic profilers' might decide not to share."

"Hey," she said, turning around to open the box and pulling out a donut without giving Straub time to pull away, "all I'm saying is we spent all day with you guys yesterday and we still haven't got a profile, which means we're no closer to picking out the right guy."

"It helps when we put a little _thought _into our profiles," Kratzer told her, appearing from behind Straub with a grin on his face and a Dunkin Donuts Box o'Joe in his hands. "Eddie, Tony, and I all prepared our own last night, using the material you gave us. We're ready whenever you are to sit down and go over them."

Eager to get out of her uncomfortable sitting position, Eames jumped to her feet and waved the donut she was holding at him enthusiastically. "I'm ready. Goren?" she prompted, turning to look at her partner, who was watching her with amusement. "You coming?"

Goren just watched her for another second, then nodded and stood. "Sure."

"Good. Oh, help me carry these in?" she asked, pointing to the stack of tips and giving him a meaningful look as the three FBI agents headed en masse toward the conference room.

He looked at the pile, which wasn't unusually large, and then at her. "You want me to help you with _that_?"

"Actually," she said, circling the desks to get to him but keeping her eyes on their visitors until they had disappeared into the conference room, "no. I just wanted to get you alone so I can make you feel appropriately guilty."

"Guilty?" With a sigh, he picked up the stack and started to turn away from her. "I told you I was sorry, Eames. I don't know what -"

"Not about that," she broke in, grabbing his arm and pulling him around to face her again. "About this."

"What?"

Her response was to pull up the back of her shirt a few inches, displaying a deep purple bruise the size of a saucer that spread across her back just above her waist. "This."

Horrified, he dropped the papers and stared at the mark for a few seconds, then looked up to meet her eyes. "I did that?"

"You're heavy," she said with a shrug, letting her shirt fall back into place and taking a bite of her donut. "Ok, now we can head to the conference room."

"Eames, I'm sorry," he said, ignoring her dismissal. "Are you sure you're -" he began, reaching out to touch the now-covered injury as if to prove to himself that it was real.

"Don't!" She flinched away from his hand and swung the donut at him defensively. "It hurts like a bitch. Keep your hands _off_."

"Sorry."

"You should be," she told him primly. "Next time you get the urge to tackle me, do it on something that doesn't have a sharp edge."

That earned her a dark look from him before he turned and picked up the pile again. "Let's not keep them waiting."

xxxxxxxxx

"What're those?" D'Argenzio mumbled through a mouthful of donut as Goren dropped his armful of papers on the table in the conference room.

"Tip line reports," Eames told him, reaching for another donut. "They're mostly BS."

"You haven't even looked," Goren reminded her as he pulled out a chair at the end of the table, turned it around, and straddled it.

"I've been preoccupied," she shot back, taking a seat to his left. "Remember?"

Kratzer looked up from the file folder he'd been studying. "With what? It's only eight-thirty."

"Nothing. Are you going to give us the profile or not?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, raising his eyebrows and giving her a snappy salute

She leaned forward to pour a cup of coffee, slid that one over to her partner, then poured another for herself. "Good. Go."

Kratzer and Straub exchanged a look, then Kratzer nodded. "Eddie, how 'bout I start with mine and you jump in if you've got anything different."

Straub, who was concentrating on dumping cream into his coffee, nodded distractedly and grunted.

Kratzer glanced at Eames and rolled his eyes. "Ok. First off, I'd say we've got an organized offender here. He's dumped bodies in public places without getting caught. The victims have a physical resemblance to each other, which suggests that he's holding out for the right ones, not just killing indiscriminately. By the same token, we're not seeing any mutilation, which means he's still exercising some self-control during the killing. I'm saying white male, thirty-five to forty-five."

"That old?" Straub broke in skeptically. "You know they usually start younger."

Kratzer shook his head. "This much control over himself . . . he's a mature adult. A mature _functioning _adult, even."

"Yeah, but with little enough impulse control that he's still getting is jollies by killing women instead of fu-" A loud cough from Kratzer cut him off, and he looked around the table and winced. "Instead of dating them, I mean."

"We've both heard the word 'fuck' before, Special Agent," Eames pointed out dryly. "Although I think it's a little tasteless in this context, given that we're dealing with women who've been raped."

"Uh, yeah. Of course. Sorry."

"Tony?" Kratzer said, looking at the young agent. "What did you think?"

D'Argenzio blinked, surprised at being called upon. "Uh, above-average intelligence. Neat appearance, maybe attractive to women like Bundy was."

"Why?"

"Well, there's no defensive wounds on the women. No skin under their nails, at least that we've found. Even if he blitzed them, you'd expect them to scratch at his arms. The fact that they didn't, it makes me think that she knew him, or at least wasn't afraid of him . . . which means that he probably doesn't look like someone to be afraid of."

"Not bad, Tony," Straub said, nodding approvingly. "Now tell us where he's going to be working and living."

D'Argenzio stared at him for a second, then shook his head and jammed a large bite of donut into his mouth. "Fuck off," he mumbled through it.

Eames burst out laughing and looked at Straub. "Anyone ever tell you that thing about catching more bees with honey than vinegar?" Glancing at Kratzer, she added thoughtfully, "Or is this just the way he operates?"

"You get used to it," he said with a shrug.

"I bet you do."

Straub, leaning his chair back precariously on two legs, jerked his chin at Kratzer in challenge. "You know you got something for his job, Teddy. Don't tell me you didn't."

"Didn't say I didn't," Kratzer replied coolly. "But when you phrase it like you did, you know you're setting him up."

Impatient with the back-and-forth, Goren leaned forward and, before Straub could reply to Kratzer, cleared his throat and announced, "He's capable of a skilled job, but he might have a sporadic work history. Probably lives with a wife or girlfriend. Might have souvenirs on display in his apartment."

Silence from the FBI agents.

Eames gave the the agents a smug look and reached under the table to give Goren's knee an approving squeeze. "Now do you guys see why I didn't think we needed three of you?"

"Guess so," Kratzer said, chuckling. "You trained in profiling?" he asked, turning to Goren. "Or are you just a good guesser?"

"Army Intel," he said shortly. "Then National Academy. Can we get on with this?"

"We holding you up?" Straub replied irritably.

"Eames and I have got two hundred tips to sort through before noon, when this place is going to be overrun with task force cops asking us what to do."

Straub snorted and reached for his coffee.

"Ok, ok," Kratzer said, giving his colleague a warning look. "I think we're done for now. We're going to need more case details before we can narrow the profile any more. You guys can go check out your tips," he told Eames, "but leave the coffee here. The stuff you fed us yesterday nearly burned a hole in my stomach."

She rolled her eyes and stood up, pushing the box of coffee into the center of the table. "Enjoy it, boys."

Straub, deliberately misunderstanding her statement, wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Oh, we intend to."

With a snort, Eames turned and headed for the door.


	11. A night of revelations

A/N: I promise you all, I am still working on WHBH. It's just really, really slow going, because my muse seems to have forgotten what the hell she was talking about.

* * *

Eames checked her watch that evening and then looked up at the pair of detectives standing next to her desk. "You guys are mine for the foreseeable future, right? You're on loan until we get this thing solved?"

The detectives, Watson and Higgins, both newly-promoted men in their early thirties, exchanged a look, then turned back to her and nodded vigorously. "Yes, ma'am," Watson said. "We're, uh . . . we're yours."

Eames, choosing to ignore how close they appeared to be to breaking into schoolboy-like giggles, just nodded. "Higgins, your file says you went to CUNY. Is that right?"

Higgins glanced at his partner, who shrugged, and then nodded warily. "Is that a problem?"

"Just the opposite," she replied absently, focused on searching her desk for the print-out she needed. When a few seconds of hunting failed to turn it up, she sighed and stretched a hand out to tap on her partner's desk. "Bobby, do you -"

"Here." Before she could even finish her request, he had slid another copy of the print-out across to her and gone back to the search he was doing on his computer.

"Thanks." She gave the paper a quick look to make sure it was the right one, then turned and handed it to Higgins. "Ok, here's the deal: both of these girls were graduate students at CUNY. We don't know if it means anything at this point, but we need someone to talk to their dean and try to figure out if they had anything else in common so we know whether to pursue it. You think you can handle that?"

"Yes, ma'am," Watson repeated, snapping to attention almost comically. "Uh, when do you want us to do this?"

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed, slumping back in her chair and interlacing her hands over her abdomen. "Yesterday would be preferable. Tonight would be ok, if you're not afraid of tracking the dean down at home. Tomorrow morning's an acceptable alternative if you are."

"Ok. What about -"

"And don't call me 'ma'am'," she tacked on, wondering if the case had somehow turned her into a matron who looked like a _ma'am_.

"Right," Higgins said nervously. "Uh, sorry, uh . . . Detective. Detective Eames. We'll do this tonight, don't worry."

"We will?" Watson muttered under his breath, looking at his partner in surprise.

"We will," Higgins replied through his teeth.

Eames hardly registered the exchange as she tried to sort through her thoughts for any other instructions to give the men. "I want to get a call from you as soon as you're done, guys. Me. Or Goren," she added, tipping her head toward her partner. "You report to no one else. Got it?"

Both men nodded.

"Ok. Thank you. Good night." Not wanting to field any more questions from the overeager men, she dismissed them with a short nod and lowered her eyes, keeping them down until the men's retreating feet were out of sight.

"You have an interesting effect on the male portion of the task force," Goren said conversationally a few minutes later, making her jerk her head up in surprise.

"What?" she asked, blinking.

He shrugged. "Well, you've got Kratzer and D'Argenzio wrapped around your little finger. Straub would probably do anything you asked if it meant he could get you into bed. And now Higgins and Watson - you're lucky they didn't get any drool on your desk."

"You're not funny," she snapped, unable to see any humor in the fact that she might be being treated differently because of her sex.

"I wasn't trying to be funny. I was just pointing out a fact."

"Yeah, well, it's not a fact. Don't you have work you should be doing instead of watching me, anyway?"

Shaking his head, he turned off his computer's monitor. "No. It's late, Eames. I was just waiting for you to finish up before I head out."

"You don't have to wait around for me," she said, closing her laptop and giving him a hard look. "Especially if you're just going to wisecrack the whole time."

"It seemed like the polite thing to do."

With a snort, she stood up and began gathering her belongings. "Since when are you concerned with being polite to me? And, for that matter, since when do you have to actually think of a reason to stay at work late?"

Goren just sighed. "I'm not fighting with you over this. We're both too tired and stressed out to be reasonable."

"Hah." She looked around the room quickly, making sure there was no one else within earshot, then leaned slightly forward and hissed, "You're probably just afraid to be alone with me during a fight, after last night."

Stunned by both the suddenness of the attack and its direction, he could only stare at her, open-mouthed. "Last night was -"

"I'm going home," she cut him off, snatching her purse from under her desk. "I suggest you do the same."

"Eames!"

She sighed and just looked at him, unable to keep her glare from weakening after a few seconds. "Forget it. Like you said, I'm tired." Shouldering her purse, she took a few steps toward the elevators, then turned back and offered him a meager smile. "I'll see you in the morning, Bobby. Good night."

Still trying to get a handle on the rapid changes her mood had undergone in the past few minutes, Goren just nodded wordlessly and watched her go.

* * *

The ringing of her phone dragged Eames out of a very pleasant dream involving Derek Jeter much later that night. Forcing her eyes open, despite the sleepy sting it caused, she squinted at her bedside clock and saw that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. A call that late at night was probably one of three things: a family emergency, a sleepless partner, or Higgins and Watson reporting in. Hoping for the third, she managed to hook a finger into the phone cord and drag the phone across the nightstand until she could pick up the receiver. "Hello?" she mumbled into it, closing her eyes again.

"Uh . . . Detective Eames?" asked a tentative male voice.

Not Goren, and not a family member. "Yeah. Hold on," she told the caller, then pulled the receiver away from her ear long enough to drag the whole phone into her lap and sit up against the headboard. "Ok, sorry about that. Go ahead."

The caller coughed. "Uh, yeah. This is Frank Watson. You know, from the task force? Sorry it's so late . . . we just, uh, we remembered you said you wanted to hear from us as soon as we were done with the dean, and -"

"Yeah, I remember," she interrupted impatiently. "Did you get something from him?"

"Actually, yes," Watson said, sounding proud of himself. "Both of the dead women were in the Sociology department, and they had the same advisor."

That woke her up. Stiffening, she opened her eyes and stared into the dark with a growing smile. "Who?"

"Guy named . . ." There was a pause, and the sound of papers being shuffled. "Robert Daugherty."

"Never heard of him," she said through a yawn.

"Me either," replied Watson, "but . . . oh, wait, hold on. Higgins looks excited, I think he's got something."

She could hear the sound of the two men talking on the other end of the line, but couldn't make out their words. With a sigh, she closed her eyes again and let her head fall back against the headboard. "Watson?"

"Uh . . . uh, yeah, sorry," he said a few seconds later. "Jimmy pulled Daugherty's records, and he's got a sheet."

"For what?"

"Sexual harassment . . . followed by violation of a restraining order issued in that case. He got a suspended sentence because he's a contributor to society, or some shit like that."

The familiar bolt of adrenaline that always accompanied a good lead shot through her. "Watson," she said, jumping to her feet and flipping on the light.

"Yeah?"

"Are you guys at One PP?"

"Yes ma' - uh, Detective. Is that ok?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Listen, leave everything you got tonight on my desk and then go get some sleep, ok? I'm coming in to look it over."

Watson's surprise at her reaction was audible in his voice when he said, "Uh . . . ok. Are you sure you don't want -"

"No, no. You guys need to get some sleep if you're going to work tomorrow. I've already got mine, so I'm going in. Oh, and Watson?"

"What?"

"Thank you." Not waiting for him to reply, she hung up the phone, then reached for a pair of jeans with one hand and picked up the phone again with the other, tucking it between her ear and her shoulder and pounding out her partner's number on the keypad. He'd be just as pleased as she was at this news, and he'd want to join her.

Both hands free once she had the number dialed, she concentrated on wiggling into the jeans, which she'd left in a heap a few hours ago when she went to bed, while the phone rang in her ear.

One ring, then another. She zipped and buttoned the jeans.

After three rings, she started to wonder what he was doing, given that he normally answered nighttime calls from her fairly quickly.

A fourth ring, and she was just getting ready to hang up and try him again once she got to work when the ringing abruptly stopped, replaced by the sound of a receiver being fumbled. "Bobby, it's me," she began, wanting to relay the message quickly so they could both get moving. "I got -"

"Bobby's . . . occupied," interrupted a female voice. "May I ask who's calling?"


	12. Crash and burn

A/N: Wtf? I hate when the site refuses for half a day to let me upload a new chapter!

* * *

The sensation of movement next to him, followed by a loud voice, woke Goren out of the deep sleep, bordering on unconsciousness, that he had given in to only an hour before. Groaning, he turned toward the source of the noise and opened his eyes, taking in the dark hair and bare back of the woman sitting on the side of his bed. "Danielle . . ." 

"Hmm?" She twisted around to look at him, then gave him a rueful smile and patted his bicep. "Sorry, hon. I was trying not to wake you up."

"Oh. What -" He stopped short when he realized she was holding his cell phone in her hand. "What are you doing?" he asked slowly, suspecting that whatever it was, he wouldn't like it.

"Your phone was ringing," she said with a shrug, leaning forward to put it down on the nightstand, "and you weren't waking up. So I picked it up."

Yep, he didn't like it. Muttering a curse, he sat up and rubbed at his eyes. "You answeredmy phone?"

"Well, yeah," she said. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Is there something wr-" he started to echo incredulously, then broke off with a shake of his head to opt for a more important question: "Who was it?"

Looking thoughtful, Danielle slid down in the bed until she was lying next to him again. "Alex somebody-or-other. She didn't seem to want to say much once she realized I wasn't you."

Alex had called in the middle of the night and_ Danielle_ had answered his phone? "Shit!" he bit out, barely resisting the urge to give Danielle a hard push out of his bed as he clambered out of it himself. "What did you say to her? What did she say?" Without waiting for her answer, he headed for the closet. His partner wouldn't have called him so late unless either she or the case needed him - and both of those took precedence over Danielle Matthews.

"What . . . Bobby!" Danielle blurted, scrambling out of bed to follow him across the room. "It's not a big deal. She just said to tell you that she got a name, and then she hung up."

He spared her a glance as he buttoned his shirt, then repeated, "What did you say to her?"

"I told her you were busy!" Danielle snapped. "Jesus, Bobby, the world's not going to end because I picked up your phone. And if 'Alex' is another girlfriend," she added, watching him nearly trip himself in his haste to pull on a pair of pants, "then it damn well serves you right!"

" 'Alex' is my partner." He snatched his phone and his keys off the nightstand, then turned to look at Danielle, who was standing in the middle of his bedroom, looking both shocked and confused. "You can stay the rest of the night if you want. I won't be home. Lock the door when you leave."

"Bobby!"

He ignored her shouted protest and was out the apartment door within seconds, flipping open his phone to dial his partner's number.

* * *

Alex looked at her buzzing cell phone as it wobbled across her desk, then picked it up and checked the caller ID: Goren. With a quiet snort, she hit the button to silence the phone and put it down again. If he was calling her, he'd gotten her message, and if he'd gotten her message, then he would choose to either come to One PP and meet her, or stay with whatever woman had answered his phone. Either way, he didn't need to talk to her to decide.

Reminding herself that his after-hours activities were none of her concern, she forced her attention back to the computer screen in front of her, which was displaying Robert Daugherty's records.

* * *

He walked into the squad room twenty minutes later, unsure of what sort of welcome he was going to get. Depending on Eames's current mindset, she would probably either let loose at him or refuse to speak to him.

Neither of those were particularly attractive to him at the moment, but he couldn't escape the fact that he'd brought it upon himself with his impulsive invitation to Danielle. He'd known before he even picked up the phone to issue it what would happen, and he'd mentally consigned his partner to hell and made the call anyway.

After all, he'd rationalized, Eames was dating someone - a witness, no less. For all he knew, she was sleeping with the "gorgeous" psychiatrist; why shouldn't Goren see someone if he wanted? _She _was the one who'd told him he ought to stick with Danielle.

And her only reaction to his kissing her had been amusement.

He had no reason to feel like he was doing something underhanded when he called Danielle. At least, that was what he had convinced himself of earlier in the night. Right up until he woke up to see Danielle holding his phone.

Now Danielle was nearly forgotten and he was concentrating on what he could see of his partner's face from across the room, searching for any hint of what to expect.

When he reached their desks, her response was far from what he'd expected. She looked up from whatever she had been writing, offered him a cool nod, and pushed a piece of paper across to him. "Robert Daugherty," she told him, returning her attention to the legal pad in front of her. "Both girls were his advisees."

"Oh." Warily, he slid into his seat across from her and picked up the paper, looking at it but not really seeing it through his anxiety over her chilly greeting. "Uh, Eames . . ."

"What?" she said, turning to her computer and not looking up at him.

"Um, when you called . . . a little while ago, I mean . . . that was -"

"I don't care what - or who - it was, as long as you got my message. Which you did."

He blinked, unused to dealing with an Eames who looked normal but whose speech was rapidly lowering the room temperature toward freezing. "Listen," he said tentatively, "Danielle is -"

"I don't _care_!" she snapped, raising her eyes to glare at him. "I don't care what Danielle is. Just keep her out of my case." Not giving him time to reply, she stood up and, in one swift movement, scooped up her laptop and the pad she'd been writing on. "That's all I've got for him right now," she said, nodding at the paper he was still holding. "So see what you can make of it. I'll be in the conference room."

"Eames!"

She ignored him and continued walking.

Stunned, he watched her disappear into the conference room and close the door behind her.

* * *

_Danielle_, she thought angrily as she made a note on her pad. _Who'd you expect it to be, Alex, his mother? He's perfectly -_

The point of the pencil she was writing with snapped under the pressure she was applying to it and flew past her cheek, narrowing missing her eye. Fighting the urge to scream in frustration, she slapped the now-useless pencil down and stood up to retrieve a new one from the pile of forgotten writing implements that was a fixture of the conference room.

Her partner could sleep with whoever he wanted to, she reminded herself as she settled back down at the table and started writing again. She certainly had no claim on him.

Still, out of all the women in the world he could have taken to bed, why did it have to be a smarmy, large-breasted medical examiner who sneered at Eames every time they ran into each other? The woman had sounded positively gleeful when she answered the phone and told Eames that "Bobby was occupied." What the hell did "occupied" mean, anyway?

On second thought, she probably _really _didn't want to know. The thought of Bobby sleeping with that -

"Alex?"

She jumped, startled by the voice that had shattered the silence of the room. "_What_?" she barked, whirling around to find her partner standing just inside the door of the room.

Emboldened by the fact that she'd responded at all, he closed the door behind him and took another step toward her. "Look, I'm sorry she answered the phone. I was asleep, and . . . I don't know what possessed her to do that."

Closing her eyes, she took a slow breath and then let it out. "Bobby."

"What?"

"I don't want to know." She opened her eyes again and immediately directed them to the pencil she was holding. "Who you sleep with is your business, not mine."

Giving her a skeptical look, he pulled out a chair across from her and dropped into it. "That's not what you thought a few days ago."

"That," she said tightly, keeping her eyes down, "was before it became something other than academic. I'm not going to act like I really think I have any say in who you go to bed with."

"This was a one-time thing," he began, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I -"

"Oh, even better!" she broke in sarcastically. "Not only are you sleeping with someone I can't stand, but you're _using _her, too! I guess the two of you are just made for each other."

"Eames, come on. Would you listen to me, please?"

"What for? Is there some part of the story I missed, maybe? Or are you just trying to make yourself feel better by 'explaining' it to me?"

"Look, I'm sorry, ok?" he snapped, shoving back his chair and getting to his feet. "I didn't want this to happen."

"I bet," she snorted. "Maybe that's something you should think about _before _you jump in the sack with someone from now on."

He sighed. "I did think about it. I just . . . overruled myself."

"That's not my problem," she replied coldly. "Are you going to do any work tonight, or are you just going to keep bugging me? Because if it's the latter, I'm not hanging around for it."

" 'Bugging you'?" he repeated incredulously, resting on hand on the corner of the table and leaning down. "I'm trying to _apologize_ to you - although I have no idea why, since I sure as hell don't owe you an apology for having a social life outside of you."

Standing up, she moved closer to him, glaring. "Yeah, well, your apology _sucks_." She gave him a hard push toward the door. "Don't do me any favors. If you don't think you owe me anything, then don't patronize me and pretend you do." She gave him another shove, a faint smile on her face as she watched him stumble backwards into the wall.

He wrapped a hand around the door frame, holding himself in place so her pushes couldn't move him any farther toward the door. "What the hell's wrong with you? What do I have to do to get you to stop screaming at me?"

Still glaring daggers, she came to a stop a few feet in front of him. "You could start by having better taste in women. Go back to your desk, Bobby," she went on quickly, jabbing a finger into his chest and then using it to point to the door. "Trust me when I say you don't want to take this conversation any farther."

Refusing to be moved, he just raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"

"Because you wouldn't like either of the two things I'm tempted to do to you right now," she snapped. "Would you just _go_?"

"No." Intrigued by her comments, he crossed his arms and looked down at her curiously. "What are the two things?"

"What, you don't believe me?"

"That I wouldn't like them? No, I believe you. Considering how angry you are right now, I'm pretty sure anything you do to me will be less than pleasant - but I'm still curious."

She took a step back, scrutinizing him, and then nodded jerkily. "Fine."

" 'Fine' what?"

"Shut up." And with that, she planted a hand on his chest, went up on tiptoe, and kissed him.

Shocked, he froze for a second, but as the kiss began to overshadow the argument in his short-term memory, he relaxed and wrapped an arm around her waist with a quiet groan.

And then, without segue, she pulled her mouth away from his, took a step back, and slammed a well-practiced right hook into his jaw, knocking him back a step.

Slightly dazed by the blow, he raised a hand to touch his face where her punch had landed, verifying that everything was still in one piece, and then just stared at her.

Doing her best to look completely unconcerned by his reaction, she raised her eyebrows and smiled in satisfaction. "I warned you, Bobby. Now, I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow."

By the time he'd gotten his wits together enough to react to her words, she was long gone.

* * *

A/N: Yes, Bobby is a rat bastard. He will be made to pay - and pay, and pay - before this story ends! 


	13. Denial ain't just a river

Straub took one look at Goren the next morning and started snickering. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked, gesturing to the knuckle-shaped bruise visible on Goren's jawline.

Eames, keeping her face perfectly expressionless, looked up at the FBI agent and said, "Good question, Eddie." Moving her eyes to her partner, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Bobby? What _did _happen to you?"

Goren's jaw tightened for a second before he looked at Straub and shrugged. "Got in a fight."

Kratzer, who had once again gotten stuck with carrying the coffee, heaved the box onto Goren's desk and chuckled. "A fight, huh? How'd the other guy make out?"

"Walked away," he said shortly, moving a little too abruptly as he got to his feet and picked up the box of coffee that Kratzer had just put down. "We got a lead last night. You guys ready to get started?"

The two agents, surprised by the sharpness in his voice, both looked at Eames for an explanation, but she just shrugged and stood up. "The two girls who went to CUNY had the same advisor - and the advisor has a record."

"Talk about your good morning!" Straub said with a grin, dropping a hand onto her shoulder appreciatively. "Tell us more."

She pointedly used her thumb and forefinger to lift Straub's hand off her shoulder. "Where's Tony?"

"Coming," Kratzer said, watching her action with amusement. "He didn't fit in the elevator we caught. This place is a zoo in the mornings."

"You're telling me," she said with a grin. "As long as you didn't abandon him in Times Square or anything, he'll find his way up here eventually. Let's head into the conference room, guys. I left my notes in there last night." Not wanting the comment to sound like it had any significance, she was careful to keep her eyes turned away from her partner as she added the last sentence.

"Uh, yeah," Goren said slowly. "Me too."

"Geez," Straub said, looking at Eames with raised eyebrows. "You both forgot? How late did you guys work?"

"Way too late," she muttered, turning her back on all three men as she headed into the conference room.

"Huh," Kratzer said thoughtfully, watching Eames's retreating back. "First morning she hasn't had a wisecrack ready for us. I wonder what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Goren said quickly. "She's just tired. We all are."

"If that's 'tired,'" Straub said to Goren over his shoulder as he started to follow Eames toward the conference room, "I'd hate to see her when she's pulled an all-nighter."

Goren just scowled and fell in behind him.

* * *

"Ok, wait," Straub said a few hours later, holding up a hand to interrupt Eames, who was in the middle of giving the expanding task force an informal summary of the few leads they had in the case. "Are we going to say that we've got two killers at work here? Or maybe a guy with multiple-personality disorder? I mean, three of the girls are connected by a shrink, two of them are connected by an advisor . . . but nothing connects all four. It's really unlikely that the guy's going to change hunting grounds mid-career unless he gets scared out of the first one." 

"We're nowhere near close enough to scare _anyone_ off," Eames said with a shake of her head. "Not even a paranoid, if he is one."

"He's not," Goren and Kratzer chorused.

Eames rolled her eyes. "Ok, fine, he's not. Either way, we've got nothing on anyone at this point. We didn't even know about the professor when the killer switched."

"The only person we've gotten close to is the psychiatrist," Goren pointed out, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair to watch her reaction.

"It's not him," she countered, copying his posture. "Hammond doesn't fit the age range, and he's not impulsive. And his work history certainly isn't spotty."

Seven pairs of eyes - the FBI agents, Watson and Higgins, and Liggitt and her partner, Wilson - turned to look at her with interest. "How do you know that?" asked D'Argenzio.

"I interviewed him," she said stiffly, studiously avoiding looking at Goren. "As far as I'm concerned, he's clean unless and until we find evidence against him."

D'Argenzio, looking appropriately abashed, just nodded.

Goren cleared his throat and reached out to lightly touch his partner's wrist. "Uh, Eames . . ."

She turned to look at him, a warning clear in her eyes, and said coolly, "Yes?"

He thought fast. It would a betrayal of her trust to publicize her relationship with Hammond, no matter how much he disagreed with it, and anyway, he wasn't going to let anyone handle the psychiatrist but himself if and when the time came. Sighing, he shook his head and turned back to the group. "Never mind. We have nothing on Hammond, but we haven't ruled out him or anyone else."

Beside him, Eames let out a quiet breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"Ok," Kratzer announced into the silence, giving the table a cheerful slap with his hands and looking around the room, "does everyone have a copy of the profile?"

A chorus of murmured assents answered him. Waiting for either Goren and Eames to retake control of the meeting, Kratzer stole a quick glance at the end of the table where they sat across from each other, but the detectives appeared to be absorbed in a staring contest. He made a mental note to question them later, then rose. "Ok, I think that's all for today. If you guys have questions, you can contact Detectives Goren and Eames. Thanks, everyone, for coming in."

It was only when the sound of chairs scraping back from the table filled the room that the that Eames blinked and looked up, realizing that Kratzer had closed the meeting for them. "Ted . . ."

"Not a problem," Kratzer said without looking up from the notes he was finishing. "You can pick up the tab on lunch."

* * *

Eames only ate one slice of the pizza they ordered for lunch before standing up and looking around at the FBI agents and then her partner. "If you guys will excuse me, I have a . . . friend I need to call." 

She disappeared into the conference room before anyone could respond to that, and three pairs of eyes turned to Goren, looking for an explanation.

Goren just shrugged and focused his eyes on his pizza, suspecting that he knew who she was calling but hoping he was wrong. "She's calling a friend," he reiterated to the men surrounding him. "You'll have to ask her if you want to know who, because I don't know."

Kratzer pulled another slice out of the box. "Of course you don't."

"So," Straub broke in, leaning toward Goren with a conspiratorial look on his face, "now that she's gone, you want to tell us about how you managed to get into a fight last night?"

"Hell," Kratzer added, nodding, "I want to know how you stayed awake long enough to get in a fight in the first place! The three of us crashed the second we hit the hotel."

Goren tensed, then very deliberately took a bite of his pizza. "I, uh . . . had a disagreement with a friend."

"A _friend_?" echoed D'Argenzio. "Geez, if that's what your friends do, what do your enemies have to look forward to?"

Kratzer and Straub snickered.

Goren concentrated on his pizza and pretended he hadn't heard the question.

The four men ate in a slightly uncomfortable silence for a few minutes until the conference room door opened and they heard the faint sound of Eames giggling. "No, really, I have to go," she was telling whoever was on the other end of the phone when she got within earshot. "We're just taking a break for lunch and then . . . no, I promise I'll be done by then. Believe me, I'm sick enough of this place that I'm going to get out as fast as I can at the end of the day. So I'll meet you there? . . . Ok, great. See you tonight."

"Hot date?" Kratzer asked her, watching with raised eyebrows as she looked up, realized how close she had been standing to the men and how audible her words must have been, and blanched.

"Man, one detective gets in fights and the other's going on dates, and all three of us feebs are in bed snoring," Straub sighed, shaking his head. "Why do I get the feeling I joined the wrong agency?"

"Don't worry, Eddie," Eames teased, recovering quickly enough from her embarrassment to force a smile and pat his shoulder comfortingly. "You wouldn't be getting dates if you were a cop, either."

"Was that your boyfriend, Detective?" D'Argenzio asked quietly as she sat down on the edge of the desk he was sitting at.

"Boyfriend? I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully, speaking to him but looking at her partner. "We've only been on a couple dates. Then again, that doesn't seem to stop _some _people."

Goren choked on a bite of pizza and broke into a coughing fit, earning himself a wallop on the back and a concerned look from Kratzer. "You ok, there?"

"Fine," he wheezed, then coughed again.

"Hey Alex, what do you know about this mysterious fight of your partner's?" Kratzer asked, turning to look at her. "He won't tell us shit beyond that he 'had a disagreement with a friend'."

"Hmm." She leaned over D'Argenzio to pull a slice of mostly-cold pizza out of the box, then straightened up and glanced at Goren. "He's telling the truth; he did have an argument with a friend. I don't know what else you guys want me to tell you."

"You could start with what he did to piss the guy off," pointed out Straub, licking pizza grease off the side of his hand. "We've never even seen Goren yell, and yet he somehow managed to get in a fight?"

Leaning back in her chair, she stole another look at Goren, meeting his eyes just long enough to tacitly remind him that she could tell the truth and humiliate him any time she liked, then shrugged elaborately. "He yells. Just not often. As for what he did . . ." She paused to take a bite of pizza, chew, and swallow. "He got caught in a lie."

"That's it?" D'Argenzio said disbelievingly. "Just a lie?"

She gave him her most charming smile and took another bite of pizza. "Apparently the other guy didn't think it was 'just' a lie."

"Alex, enough," Goren warned, standing up to throw out his paper plate. "You've made your point."

"Am I making you uncomfortable, Bobby?" she asked him sweetly. "You could tell them the story yourself, if you'd prefer."

He glared at her. "No one's going to tell the story. We have a case to solve."

"He's touchy," she stage-whispered to Straub behind her hand. "Hates admitting he lost a fight."

"What was I supposed to do, hit you back?" Goren snapped without thinking.

Silence enveloped the area surrounding their desks. Eames's jaw clenched and she gave her partner a look so dark that any reasonable man would have fled.

Goren, belatedly realizing what he'd said, cursed and jumped to his feet, glaring back at her. "I have better things to do than listen to this," he bit out. "I'll be back later." And with that, he turned and disappeared into the crowd that filled the squad room.

"The hell?" Straub said blankly, turning to give Eames a look that demanded explanation. "You're the one who hit him?"

"This has nothing to do with you, Eddie. Leave it alone. That goes for you guys too," she added, looking from D'Argenzio to Kratzer, both of whom were looking at her with newfound respect.

D'Argenzio, too fascinated by the revelation to pay attention to her words, stared at her. "He let you hit him?"

"He didn't know it was coming," she muttered. "He didn't 'let' me do anything."

Kratzer, eyebrows up around his hairline, let out a whistle between his teeth. "Well, judging by the bruise you left, you've got a mean - what was it, a hook?" Interpreting her answering shrug as a 'yes,' he nodded, agreeing with himself. "Did you knock him out?"

"No," she said shortly. "I'm not going to talk about this, Ted!"

"It's kind of hard to ignore at this point," Straub spoke up, eyeing the room in the direction Goren had fled. "Considering how he hauled ass out of here and all."

"It _is _possible to do work without him, guys. I know it may come as a surprise to you, but I know my way around the case as well as he does. Maybe better."

"None of us are saying you don't," Kratzer said soothingly. "I think Eddie's point was just that curiosity is inherent in our profession, so we can't watch what just happened and then go back to work as usual. We want an explanation."

"Well, you're not getting one!"

D'Argenzio, who had been watching the exchange warily, straightened up in his chair and, cocking his head to the side, looked at her. "Did you really catch him in a lie? Was that part true?"

"What?" she asked distractedly, sparing him only a quick glance before going back to glaring at Kratzer. "Oh. Yeah."

"What'd he lie about?" Straub pressed.

"Drop it," she snapped, looking around at the three of them. "All of you. Or I'm going to walk out, too, and you're going to have to solve this case by yourselves."

Kratzer sighed. Catching Straub's eye, he shook his head slightly, silently telling the younger man to leave off the questioning for the time being. Then looking back at Eames, he nodded. "Ok, Alex. We'll leave it alone for now."

"Yeah," Straub said, nodding vigorously. "Didn't mean to upset you. So, uh . . ." He looked around the desks, searching for a new topic of conversation, then snatched up a copy of the profile he and Kratzer had prepared. "You said you talked to the shrink, right? You want to go over this and give us a point-by-point rundown on where he matches and where he doesn't?"

Ready to grasp at whatever straws she was offered, Eames nodded and pulled the paper out of his hand. "Sure. Pull up some chairs, guys - you're making me nervous hovering around like that."


	14. Showdown on Cherry Hill

A/N: Woohoo, I'm on a roll!

* * *

By the time their pagers went off at four o'clock, both detectives were back at their desks, their tempers under what semblance of control they could manage, and the three FBI agents had scattered throughout the room. 

Eames reacted first to the buzzing, unclipping her pager from her belt and holding it up to see the message. "Shit."

Goren checked his a second later, looked at her, and sighed. "Agreed. Kratzer and Straub wanted to see the next scene - you want to go find them, or should I?"

"I'll do it," she said with a shrug, then threw back her head and yelled, "Kratzer! Straub!"

Both men were at her desk within seconds, looking like they'd sprinted from wherever they had been. "What's up?" Kratzer asked, noticing the pager she was still holding. "Oh, hell, is there another . . ." He didn't need to complete the question; the looks on the detectives' faces told him everything he needed to know. "Where?"

"The Park again," Eames said as she began gathering her things. "Cherry Hill."

"Does this guy have a fruit fixation or something?" Straub asked jokingly, relieving her of the coat she was holding so that she could reach for her bag under her desk.

"I doubt it. Thanks," she said distractedly, taking the coat back and straightening up. "Everyone ready? Is D'Argenzio coming?"

"Nah," Kratzer said, looking over his shoulder at the room. "A detective named Barek talked him into doing her running for her. Let's just say he's preoccupied."

"Barek?" she echoed, grinning, as she led the group toward the elevators. "Damn, she's good. Logan _and _an FBI agent at her beck and call."

"A pretty face goes a long way," Straub said with a shrug, then immediately held up a hand to defend himself from her smack. "I'm not saying it's _good_. I'm just saying that that's the way it is."

"Save your opinions for the rest of the peanut gallery," she scolded without any real heat. "We've got a less-than-attractive dead body to focus on."

* * *

"Damn!" Eames yelped as she turned the SUV into Central Park's no-vehicle zone.

Startled, all three men jumped to attention. "What the hell?' Straub asked, giving the back of her seat a pointed kick.

She mumbled an obscenity. "I just remembered that I told Ch- I told my friend that I'd meet him at six. There's no way in hell we're going to be done with this girl by then."

"So call and reschedule," Straub said with a shrug as he relaxed back into his seat. "It's not like you planned it this way."

Sighing, she nodded and pulled the car to a stop beside a pair of black-and-whites. "Guess I'll have to. You guys go get started. I'll be there in a minute."

When the men were out of the car, she pulled out her phone and dialed Hammond's number.

He answered the phone with his typical greeting to her: a warm "Alex!"

"Hi," she said, stifling a groan at the prospect of imparting bad news to him. "I, uh, have a little bit of a problem. I was wondering if you'd mind pushing back the time for tonight. We just got word that there's another body, and I'm not going anywhere but to the scene until probably seven or eight."

"I . . . Alex, you know my schedule is tight," Hammond replied, sounding vaguely alarmed. "You promised me -"

"I know, I know! And I'm sorry, seriously. But this isn't something I can get out of. So can we make it eight o'clock, or do you want to try for another night?"

He sighed, loudly enough for it to be audible to her through the phone. "No, eight is ok. Just try to actually make it this time, ok?"

"I know," she sighed. "I'm really sorry about this. I'll see you at eight - come hell or high water."

"That's the spirit. I'll see you then, Alex."

"Bye." She closed the phone and sighed again as she re-clipped it to her belt. She hated breaking appointments, and she especially wasn't happy with having to break an appointment with a man who was attractive and intelligent, in favor of tramping around the park in the mud trying to avoid speaking to her partner.

A knock on the window startled her out of her thoughts, and she turned her head to find Straub grinning at her through the glass. "Yeah, yeah. I'm coming," she muttered as she opened the door and stepped out. "Something wrong, Eddie, or did you just miss me?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

He put a casual arm around her shoulders and turned her around to face the body and the crowd surrounding it. "Who's the hot woman in the red shirt?"

She didn't even try to keep from groaning this time as her eyes fell on the woman in question. "She's the M.E.," she told him, stepping out from under his arm and starting toward the body. When he caught up to her a few steps later, she looked up at him and added, "She's also Goren's girlfriend, so I suggest you keep your distance."

Straub stopped mid-step and stared at her. "Goren's got a girlfriend? How'd I miss that one?"

Giving him a sympathetic smile, she shrugged and pulled him along by the arm. "He doesn't talk about himself much. Blink and you'll miss it when he does."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Guy's got issues."

Eames chose not to respond to that. "I think they only got serious recently," she said, forcing herself to contain the other comments that came to mind at that thought. "He's always been fine at scenes with her."

"What about her?"

"Huh?" she mumbled, increasingly distracted as they drew closer to the body and she could see more of the woman's wounds.

"What about her," he repeated. "Is she fine at scenes with him?"

"With him?" She snorted. "Yeah, she's fine with him. With me, not so much."

"Detective Eames!" Danielle called in an overly sweet voice, leaving Goren and the body behind and trotting toward Eames. "I was _wondering _where you were." She paused, looking like something had just occurred to her. "Or should I call you Alex?"

"Call me whatever you want," Eames said brusquely, noticing that next to her, Straub was inching backwards. Apparently he was smart enough to recognize dangerous female behavior when he saw it. She wondered if he was going to try to make a run for it, or if he was just trying to get out of range in case Danielle shot off something other than her mouth "I'm more interested in the body."

"It's so odd to see Bobby without you in tow," Danielle went on as if she hadn't spoken. She glanced over her shoulder at where he was crouched over the body, then turned back to Eames and smiled. "But he doesn't seem to mind, does he?"

Straub put a hand on Eames's tensed shoulder and pushed her slightly to the side so that he was the one standing in front of Danielle, then cleared his throat. Holding out a hand, he announced, "I haven't had the pleasure, ma'am. Eddie Straub."

"Mmm." Danielle eyed him, then nodded slightly and shook his hand. "Danielle Matthews. Are you a . . . friend . . . of Alex's?"

Eames, fed up with the woman's jibes, touched Straub's arm and smiled her thanks at his attempt to shield her, then walked away, heading for the body and her partner.

* * *

"What'd you find?" she asked Goren a minute later as she squatted down next to him.

"All her clothing's gone," he replied without looking up from his study of her hands. "Residue of something on her thighs. Danielle says she can't tell whether it's semen or lubricant until she can process a sample in the lab."

"Mmm," she murmured noncommittally, pulling on a pair of gloves. "He ripped the clothes off again. Is there an ID?"

"You didn't get that from the cops on-scene?" he asked, looking at her in surprise.

"I was on the phone," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "You want to answer my question?"

"Liliana Zamora," he sighed. "CUNY. Go chat up the detectives, Eames. I've got the body covered."

"Of course you do," she said coldly. "You'll have to excuse me. Didn't mean to hone in on your territory."

"Alex, it's not -" He looked up again and cut himself off as he realized that he was speaking to thin air. Groaning, he wondered how he'd ever dug himself so deep a hole and what he'd have to do to get out of it.

"I think she went to meet her . . . friend," said a voice from behind him.

He twisted around to see Danielle just reaching the top of the hill he was on. "What?"

"Her, uh, 'friend'," she repeated with a smirk, putting an even more heavily suggestive inflection on the word. "About six-foot-two? Looks like he can bench press me?"

"Oh, Straub," he said with a nod, returning his attention to the body and completely missing her attempt at insinuation. "Kratzer should be around here somewhere, too. You should introduce yourself."

"Who's Kratzer?" she asked, confused.

"Straub's boss. They're -" He looked up, blinking, as he realized that she sounded lost. "They're FBI profilers. What did you think they were?"

Danielle turned a rather unattractive shade of red, but recovered quickly. "Well, from the way your partner was all over that Straub guy, I figured . . ." She shrugged. "You know."

Automatically, he turned and scanned the crowd for Eames. After a few seconds of searching, he spotted her standing next to Kratzer and talking to one of the uniformed officers. "Alex was hanging on Straub?" he asked Danielle skeptically, turning her eyes back to her. "I doubt that. She won't let him touch her most of the time."

"Well, she's -"

"Danielle, please," he sighed in exasperation. "I'm trying to get my job done here. Can we focus on the dead woman instead of the live one?"

"She could push you under a bus, and you'd _still _come running when she called, wouldn't you?" Danielle snapped.

Out of patience, he spared her another glance and then returned to looking at the body's hand, which he still hadn't managed a complete examination of. "Leave it alone, Danielle. If you're not going to help on the case, go find something else to keep you busy."

Muttering curses, she did as ordered and stomped off.

* * *

Eames had the questionable luck of being alone at the bottom of the hill when Danielle huffed away from Goren, and she would have been been mown down if she hadn't reacted quickly and jumped out of the way. "Jesus!" she gasped, turning to see who it was that had nearly run over her. "What's - oh," she broke off as she caught sight of the last possible person she wanted to see. Gritting her teeth, she managed to keep her reaction short and to the point: "You should watch where you're going, Dr. Matthews."

"_You_," Danielle shot back, "should just get out of my way_. Everywhere_."

Eames, taken aback by the virulence in the woman's voice, could only stare at her for a second before she said, forcing herself to stay calm, "As far as I know, this is the first time I've ever been in your way, Doctor."

"Oh, please. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Logic dictated that Danielle was talking about Goren, but Eames was at a loss for what it was that she had done to get in the other woman's way. "I don't know what you're thinking I did, but last time I checked, you seemed pretty happy with where you were."

"This is ridiculous!" Danielle snapped, throwing up her hands.

"I agree. So if you don't mind, I'm going to -"

"Do you know who answered his phone last night?" Danielle hissed, leaning forward and putting her face within inches of Eames's. "Me. And do you know what he did when I told him what you said? He jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and ran out the door. To you. So I'm saying it again: stay out of my way."

"He ran to the _case_, not to me. And," she added, lowering her voice to a near-whisper, "_you're _the one sleeping with him. I doubt I could do anything to stop either of you. Now would you please leave me alone?"

"In a second. You want to know a secret about Bobby?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she gave Eames a malicious smile and answered her own question. "Of course you do. So listen to _this_: he doesn't get turned on by skinny women who act like men. So don't hold your breath, sweetie." With that, she turned and marched away, leaving Eames standing alone on the grass, arms crossed defensively across her body.

Eames took a deep breath and let it out, trying to slow her pounding heart and force her hands to relax from the fists they had formed in the face of the other woman's attack.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing like that when she heard her name being spoken quietly. The sound jerked her rudely out of her thoughts. Blinking rapidly, she looked around and found Kratzer watching her with concern.

Seeing that she had come back to reality, he put a tentative hand on her shoulder and moved a step closer. "Alex? You ok?"

"Yeah." She blinked again, cleared her throat, and gave him her best smile. "I'm fine. Uh, you need me for something?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Straub, who was leaning against the SUV and watching them. "We're about ready to leave. Goren's in the car. You . . . uh, you got anything else you need to do here?"

She realized with alarm that the scene had continued to move around her while she stood frozen. "Uh . . . I have to talk to the . . . to everybody," she said weakly, pulling out her notepad and taking stock of who at the scene she'd interviewed and who she hadn't gotten to by the time Danielle pulled her aside.

"Taken care of," Kratzer said quickly. "I mean, you can do it again if you want, but I think Eddie and I covered everyone who was here. Half of them are gone now anyway."

She nodded slowly and took another breath. "Yeah, I'm ready, then. Just, uh . . . give me a minute, ok?"

"Ok," he said, patting her shoulder. "Give a yell if you need us."

She gave him an abrupt nod, then turned and headed for the lakeshore.


	15. Breaking and entering

A/N: As per boohoo650's request, I'm making tonight a threefer. Congrats on finishing your finals, your reward is an extra-long chapter!

* * *

"So," Straub said casually when he climbed into the car after getting the nod from Kratzer, who was still out on the grass, "the medical examiner, huh?"

Goren, who had been lost in thought, blinked and turned in his seat to look at him. "What?"

"The M.E.," he said again, leaning forward in the gap between the front seats. "Alex said she's your girlfriend?"

Sighing, Goren shrugged. "Alex is jumping the gun."

"So she's not your girlfriend?"

"I don't know what she is," he said tightly. "We've gone on dates."

"Have you slept with her?"

"Excuse me?"

"I asked if you've slept with her," Straub said matter-of-factly. "Because if you have, then she's probably decided she _is _your girlfriend."

"Does it matter?" Goren asked, turning back to the front of the car in an attempt to end the conversation.

"Maybe." He leaned farther forward, refusing to let Goren ignore him. "It could at least partially explain why she jumped down Alex's throat the second she saw her."

As intended, that got Goren's attention. He whipped his head around, giving Straub a hard look. "Wait, what? What do you mean she jumped down her throat?"

Straub shrugged. "I think it's pretty self-explanatory. As soon as she spotted Alex, she made tracks over to her. I was standing right there, and let me tell you - the woman didn't even bother to say hello before she started tossing out insults right and left. At least . . ." He paused. "At least, I think they were insults. Some of them didn't mean anything to me, but Alex seemed pretty pissed."

"I -"

"Sorry to be the one to have to tell you, man," Straub interrupted, "but your girlfriend's a bitch. What's she got against Alex, anyway?"

"I, uh . . ."

"Judging by the way Ted hightailed it over to Alex a few minutes ago, it looks like she took one last parting shot, too."

"Did you guys do any _work _at this scene?" Goren snapped. "Or were you busy watching Alex?"

Looking mildly surprised by the tone of Goren's voice, Straub shrugged. "Someone's got to, apparently, and you weren't signing on for the job."

Before Goren could think of a response to that, two of the cars doors opened and Kratzer and Eames slid into their seats. Eames glanced over her shoulder and offered Straub a halfhearted smile, then started the car and pulled away from the scene without another word.

* * *

"Alex?" Kratzer asked when he cornered her in the squad room a little while later. "Are you ok?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" she snapped. "I'm fine, ok? Nothing you - or Eddie, or Goren - need to worry about."

He sighed and advanced another step. "It's just . . . you know, we saw how Goren's girlfriend messed with you at the scene. You looked upset."

"I am _not upset_!" She didn't realize how loud the words were until they came out of her mouth and heads all over the room began to turn toward her. "I'm not upset," she repeated more quietly to Kratzer. "Ok?"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Ok, ok. So, uh . . ." He glanced down at his watch. "Aren't you supposed to be on a date right now?"

Her eyes widened and she stared at her own watch, then sighed. "Well, I was_ supposed_ to be, yeah. But that doesn't seem to be working out. I feel like shit tonight anyway."

"Do you want -"

"No!" she interrupted, holding up a hand to stop his invitation. "You guys are tired, and you don't need me hanging around bugging you."

Kratzer glanced toward Eames's desk, where Straub was currently ensconced, and rolled his eyes at the other man, indicating failure. "Ok," he said, looking back at Eames. "Whatever you want. You have our numbers if you decide you need some company."

"Yeah, sure." Inching past him as if she expected him to make a grab for her, she headed for her desk to retrieve her purse.

Straub looked up from the file he was reading as soon as he saw her in his peripheral vision. "You're heading home, Alex?"

Goren, whose eyes were on the computer monitor in front of him, stilled but didn't look up.

"Basically," she hedged, adjusting her purse strap. "I'll see you guys in the morning."

Both FBI agents moved their eyes to Goren, wondering what his reaction would be. By the time they realized that his lack of reaction _was _his reaction, Eames was gone.

* * *

Her phone was ringing again, Eames realized groggily, opening her eyes and sitting up on her couch. She wondered who it was this time. Chris Hammond had already called twice and left two concerned-sounding messages on her answering machine; Eddie Straub had called once and left a message playfully urging her to take him out on the town; and her partner had called three times, leaving increasingly worried messages.

And it had only been three hours since she got home.

It was amazing, she thought as she leaned over to check the caller ID on her phone, how many people suddenly wanted to talk to you as soon as you decided to stop answering the phone for the night.

Goren, the caller ID informed her.

With a quiet groan, she left the phone to ring and flopped back down on the couch. Her dog, seeming as concerned as everyone else about her, crawled up her legs to curl up on her stomach, and she lifted one hand to stroke his head as she stared at the ceiling.

She wasn't sure why she was so upset over the bitchy behavior of one less-than-likeable woman. All she could come up with was that she simply wasn't used to being attacked with words. With fists or a gun, sure. She'd encountered those multiple times on the job. On the other hand, she couldn't remember the last time someone had taken the time to stand in front of her and verbally shred her, completely without remorse.

And it had been two men she'd known for a grand total of three days who had noticed the attack and tried to protect her. Her partner, on the other hand, appeared to have been happily oblivious to how his girlfriend was amusing herself.

That was what got to her the most. She disliked Danielle Matthews for her cruel words . . . but she was pretty closed to hating Bobby Goren for turning his back on her and giving Danielle tacit permission to do her worst.

It didn't matter whether he had romantic interest in Eames or not, really. The simple fact was that good partners, no matter how much they might fight behind closed doors, defended each other from the world in public . . . and Goren had let that responsibility slip right past him.

_Maybe he was too busy staring at his new girlfriend's chest_, she thought, then silently admonished herself for her cattiness.

She sighed deeply, dislodging the dog, who slipped sideways off her stomach and sat up to give her a dirty look before resuming his position. The only thing all this thinking was accomplishing was making her angrier, and she was sick of being angry. She eyed the clock, noticing that it was almost midnight, then closed her eyes, stretched, and allowed herself to drift back into the sleep the ringing phone had woken her from.

* * *

An hour later, Goren quietly let himself into her apartment and stared into the darkness, debating whether or not to turn on a light. The decision was quickly preempted by the sound of panting, followed by a tugging sensation he'd come to recognize as the dog chewing on his pants. Pulling his leg away, he squatted down and peered into the near-darkness until he spotted the dog. "Come on, you," he whispered, picking it up and getting a long swipe of its tongue up his cheek in retaliation. "Where is she?"

The dog wiggled, licked him again, and yipped at a surprisingly polite volume. Maybe the creature wasn't as dumb as he thought it was, Goren thought as he made his way into her living room, hoping that she hadn't moved any furniture or left anything in the middle of the floor.

He stood in the doorway of the living room for a minute, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then moved forward again until he spotted an oversized lump on the couch that he tentatively identified as his partner. Adjusting the dog's weight in his arms, he picked his way over to the couch, then set the dog down on what he presumed were her legs under the blanket that covered her, and stepped back to sit in an easy chair, not wanting to scare her when she opened her eyes.

The dog, intuitively playing his part, made his way up her body and licked her ear, making her sit bolt upright with a startled yelp.

"It's past your bedtime," she informed the dog sleepily after realizing that it was only her pet and not the boogeyman. "Stop with the licking or I'm putting you in the bedroom."

"Why don't you just put _yourself_ in the bedroom?" Goren asked quietly.

Eames let out a strangled scream, but quickly identified the voice and took a calming breath. "Bobby?"

"Yeah." He stood up and crossed to stand in front of the couch. "Sorry, I was trying not to scare you."

"Jesus Christ, Bobby!" Taking another deliberate breath, she reached behind her head to turn on a lamp, then pulled the blanket back around herself and stared at him. "Did it occur to you that sneaking into apartments tends to scare people? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I, uh, need to talk to you."

"At one o'clock in the morning?" she said incredulously. "I don't think so. Go home. You can talk to me in the morning."

"Not if you're still not speaking to me," he pointed out.

"Well, sneaking into my apartment isn't likely to endear you to me!" She sighed. "Just say whatever it is and then go home."

"Uh . . ." Suddenly nervous, he looked down at his hands, picking at a hangnail as he tried to think of a good opening line. "Were you going to tell me?" he finally asked.

"Tell you what?"

"About Danielle."

"Ok, wait a second." She huddled deeper into the blanket until only her head was visible above it. "Why would _I _have anything to tell you about _your _girlfriend?"

He shrugged and returned his eyes to the hangnail. "You're the one she's been taking potshots at. Were you planning on telling me about it, or were you just going to stop talking to me and hope I read your mind?"

"Go away, Bobby." Turning over to face the back of the couch, she pulled the blanket over her head and closed her eyes.

"Answer my question."

"No," she mumbled into the couch.

Sighing, he decided to try another tactic: "Why did I have to hear about this from an FBI agent who's known you for a grand total of three days?"

She turned her head to give him a disdainful look. "Funny, I was wondering the same thing."

"What?"

"You have eyes, Bobby," she said, turning away again. "You were right there half the time. So why don't you explain to me why you had to be 'told' at all, instead of figuring it out for yourself?"

"I'm sorry, ok? I wasn't paying attention."

"No fucking kidding," she snapped. "It was pretty obvious that you were . . . preoccupied." She paused, and then turned over to look at him again. "Speaking of which, what, exactly are you doing in my apartment instead of yours or hers at one in the morning?"

"I told you, I needed to talk to you."

Up went the blanket again. "Ok, you talked," she said into it, the words coming out slightly muffled by the fabric. "Go home. Better yet, go bug your girlfriend instead of me."

"She's _not _my -"

She pulled the blanket down far enough to say, "Oh, give it up, Bobby. I don't know what you think you're gaining by pretending it's not obvious to the whole world what's going between you and her."

"She's not my girlfriend," he persisted quietly. "She wasn't really even before today, and she's certainly not after today."

"Why, because she doesn't like me?" she asked sarcastically.

"Yes," he said simply, looking at his hands. "Among other reasons."

She stared at him for a second, then shook her head with an incredulous laugh. "This is a crock, Bobby. Give it up. You know as well as I do that half your girlfriends have hated me, and you didn't dump them for it. What's different about this one?"

"She attacked you," he said with a shrug. "Out loud. In public. And she did her best to hide it from me."

Eames just raised an eyebrow and kept looking at him.

"Then she started bad-mouthing you to me," he went on after a second of silence. "Or rather, she started insinuating that there's something going on between me and you and she wanted it stopped."

Alex, tempted to throw something at him, settled for covering her face with the blanket again. "Why didn't you just point out that she had it ass-backwards and we can hardly stand each other anymore?"

"Alex!"

"_What_?" she snapped, jumping angrily to her feet and quickly wrapping the blanket around herself like a cape. "Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong."

He blinked and rubbed his hands together, then sighed and looked up at her. "I can only speak for myself, but I, uh . . . I can stand you. I mean, I like you."

"Oh, you're too kind," she mocked, giving him a sweeping bow. "Are you going to tell me what really possessed you to come here tonight, when a few hours ago you were more than happy with the status quo, or are you going to keep lying to me?"

"Would you please sit down?" he said, standing up and moving toward her. "You're making me nervous."

"Yeah, well, that makes two of us. _You're_ not the one who's carrying on a conversation barely dressed."

"What?" he blurted, taking an automatic step back in response to her tone, which resembled the one she had used the night before, just before she hit him.

"Why do you think I'm wrapped in a goddamn blanket, Bobby? It's one o'clock in the morning. I was asleep for the night." With a snort of derision, she turned away. "You're lucky I'm wearing anything."

"I, uh . . ."

"Go home. Don't make me tell you again."

Giving her a stubborn look, he shook his head. "Not until you listen to me. And it doesn't matter what you're wearing. I'm not going to jump you."

To his consternation, that just earned him an unpleasantly high-pitched laugh. "_That," _she said, turning to show him a humorless smile, "is not on my list of worries, trust me."

"Well," he said confusedly, "I just thought . . . you know, since the other night I, uh, kissed you . . . I thought . . ." Too tangled up in his thoughts to make his words any more coherent, he finished the sentence by just shrugging.

"I don't know what that was," she said with a sigh, partially burying her face in the blanket, "but I don't think I'm in any danger of you repeating it."

"I . . . why not?"

"Ask your girlfriend," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"She's not my damn girlfriend, Alex! Is this . . . what did she say to you about this?"

"About whether or not you're interested in kissing me again?" She laughed. "She didn't say anything to me about kissing."

"Alex, come on," he said quietly, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Obviously she said something that upset you, and -"

"I'm not _upset_!" she yelled, throwing her arms out wide to emphasize the words. "I -" She stopped short there, realizing that she was no longer covering herself and, correspondingly, he was no longer looking at her face. "Stop it," she snapped, closing her arms again and pulling the blanket tightly around her.

He blinked and moved his eyes to hers, taking a step toward her. "You, uh . . . last night . . . you kissed me before you hit me."

"So?" she said defensively, watching his movement with trepidation.

"So . . . why? I understand the punch, but why the kiss?"

She shrugged uncomfortably and looked away. "I told you then, there were two things I wanted to do to you. So I did them both."

"Oh." Moving too quickly for her to protest, he took her chin in his hand and studied her face for a moment, looking for any hint of displeasure with his action and finding none. "Would you hit me again if I did what _I _want to right now?"

Alex swallowed nervously. "Uh . . . depends on what it is."

He lifted the hand he wasn't using, brushing its fingers over her collarbone and then trailing them across her shoulder to cup the back of her neck. "Ok so far?"

Eyes locked on his, she mouthed a soundless "yes" and waited to see what he would do next.

Using his hand on her neck, he urged her forward and lowered his head toward hers.

"Bobby," she breathed, looking down at where her hands were gripping the blanket, keeping it wrapped around her

"What?"

"My hands . . ."

His response was to pull her closer, until she was pressed against him, the friction of their bodies keeping the blanket up. "Better?"

She cautiously released her hold on it, waiting to make sure it wouldn't fall, then raised her eyes and nodded.

"Good," he murmured, and kissed her before she could think of any more excuses.


	16. Facing the music

A/N: Super-short chap, but I needed a transition before I move on to the next day, so...here it is

* * *

Caught off guard by the suddenness of his movement, she responded to his kiss before she could stop herself, but within minutes, reality began to creep back and she tensed. "No, Bobby," she mumbled into his mouth, using one hand to grab hold of her blanket and wedging the other against his chest and pushing him back as she shook her head. "I'm not doing this."

He wasn't prepared for the push, and as he stumbled backward, he stared at her in confusion, wondering what he had done in the past few seconds to change her mind. "What? Why?"

"I'm just not." She tightened the blanket defensively and took a step away from him. "Even if . . . even if I were in the mood for this tonight, which I'm not, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it."

"Do _what_? Kiss me?"

"Do anything with you," she said, turning away from him. "Not with the image of you and her in my head. My stomach isn't strong enough for that."

"Alex, I told you -"

"I know what you told me. And maybe you're even telling the truth. That doesn't change the fact that you slept with her and now suddenly the next day you're here trying to kiss me and that's just a little . . . unpleasant."

Sighing, he followed her as she tried to walk away. "I can't change the past, Alex."

"Yeah?" she shot back without turning, although she could sense him only inches behind her. "Then how about autoclaving yourself?"

"What?" he asked blankly, unable to connect the piece of scientific equipment to their conversation.

"Bobby," she said, taking a large step away and only then turning toward him, "for all I know you haven't even showered since you slept with her. Do you have any idea how . . . ugh!" Unable to think of words to describe her feelings, she settled for a shudder and a grimace.

He blinked, trying to figure out exactly what she was trying to communicate. "You want me to take a shower?"

"No!" Rolling her eyes, she kept one hand on the blanket and rested the other on his chest, holding him back as he tried to move toward her. "I mean, that would be a good start, but . . . no." She sighed. "Let me put it this way: if I had just slept with Chris Hammond, and I came over your apartment and kissed you, how would you react to the concept of putting your, uh, body parts where his had just been?"

He tried to picture that, then immediately wished he hadn't.

"You 're turning an interesting shade of red, Bobby," she pointed out ingenuously, giving him a knowing smile.

"I, uh . . ." He cleared his throat. "I see your point."

"I thought you might." Slightly more relaxed now that she'd made him understand, she walked over to the couch and sat down.

He followed her again, sitting on the arm of the couch and looking down at her. "So . . . what am I supposed to do to make you . . . un-disgusted?"

She stared at him incredulously. "Do you feel even the _slightest_ bit guilty about what you did? Or does it only concern you as far as it gets in the way of dealing with me?"

"Alex . . ."

"Answer me!"

Groaning his displeasure at being made to linger on the issue, he stood up and ran a hand through his hair uneasily. "I'm, uh, disgusted," he said reluctantly, turning his back on her and starting to pace the room, "by my own lack of . . . taste. Danielle was a convenient way to keep myself away from you, and that's all I was interested in finding."

"So you slept with a bitch-on-wheels because it made you feel better about how much of a bitch you were being to me?" she summarized coolly. "You're a piece of work, Bobby." Forcing out a sarcastic laugh, she shook her head and pointed to the door. "Go home."

"Look, I just -"

"I said, 'go home.' Try again when you've found a little remorse and you're not fresh from some other woman's bed."

Bewildered by the drastic for the worse the events of his night had taken, he finally just nodded weakly and headed for the door. "Ok, if that's what you want. Good night, Alex."

"Night.

Bobby closed the door of her apartment and headed for the stairs, trying to pin down what had seemed odd about her goodbye.

It wasn't until he reached his car outside the building that he realized what it was: she had sounded like she was laughing.


	17. Insecurity

A/N: Look! A plot! My, oh my, will wonders never cease...

* * *

"No new bruises," Straub observed quietly to Kratzer the next morning, watching with interest as Goren sat down across from where the two agents had temporarily taken over Eames's desk. 

Kratzer, who had already noticed the lack of marks, shook his head in disappointment. "Which means he probably didn't talk to either of them. Guess his balls aren't as big as we figured."

Straub shrugged and returned his eyes to the crime scene photos he was studying. "I sure as hell wouldn't want to face either of them after they got into a catfight over me. Especially the medical examiner. She looked like she wanted to spit on Alex."

"Good thing she didn't. That'd be a scene I wouldn't want to work."

"No kidding."

"You girls having a coffee klatch?" Eames asked, coming up behind them and bending down to throw an arm across each one's shoulders, making both men jump. "Because from back here, it looks like either you're sharing secrets or you're flirting with each other."

The two men jumped apart reflexively in response to that. A second later, Straub straightened up from where he had been bending over side of the desk, walked toward her until they were almost touching, and looked down his nose at her, giving her his most threatening glare.

Eames just grinned and gave him a gentle shove. "Down, boy. After five years of Goren, I'm more scared by short guys than tall ones."

"So if we got D'Argenzio over here . . ." he replied thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder at where the younger - and shorter - man was hovering over Barek.

". . . then Barek would come after you for stealing her new office boy," she finished for him. "And trust me, you don't want her after you any more than you want me after you."

"Hmm." He gave that a few seconds of thought, then obediently backed away from her. "Point taken. I'm going to get some coffee."

"Smart choice." Moving her attention to Kratzer, who was in her chair, she leaned over his shoulder, putting her face next to his, and announced cheerfully, "Good morning, Ted! I suggest you vacate my chair before I boot you out of it."

Worried by the sharp command, he looked up at her, but saw no real displeasure on her face. "Yes, ma'am," he replied tolerantly, getting to his feet and motioning her grandly to her chair. "You look like whatever you did last night did you some good."

"I'll take that as a compliment," she told him, dodging his implied question as she sat down and started to sort through the photos he and Straub had been looking at. "Are these from yesterday?"

"Yeah. Your partner's got the older ones," he said, nodding toward Goren, who was doing his best to look absorbed in his study of the pictures.

"Ok," Eames said absently, not looking up. "These are what I need right now anyway. I didn't get a good look around yesterday before -" Cutting herself off abruptly there, she shook her head and corrected, "I just didn't get a good look around."

Kratzer shrugged and divided the pile in half, taking half for himself and leaving the rest to her. "Where can I get an extra chair around here?"

Her attention on the photograph she was looking at, she just jerked a thumb over her shoulder at an empty desk. "I wonder what he's doing with the clothes."

"The clothes?" Straub echoed, depositing a cup of coffee on the corner of her desk, as far away from the photos as he could. "What about them?"

"Well, he's taken at least one article of clothing from each victim, but there's no clear pattern. The first girl lost a shoe. The second, he took her sweater. The third one, everything except the bra. Fourth, bra and shirt. And the last one was totally naked. I mean," she said with a sigh, "it's a pretty eclectic bunch of stuff. It's not like he took pants from one, shoes from another, and a shirt from another, and he's making himself a pretty outfit. Or if he is, he's got a closet full of duplicates."

"Eames!" Goren burst out excitedly, unable to pretend any longer that he wasn't listening, now that she had just given him an idea.

Straub, startled by the suddenness of the exclamation and wondering what had just bit Goren on the ass, put down his coffee and raised his eyebrows.

Eames, on the other hand, was more than used to being summoned by a yelp of her name, and calmly lifted her head to look at her partner. "Yes?"

"Do we . . . do we know what the items he took looked like?" He barely made it through the first two words before absently turning his eyes to a search of the top of his desk, appearing to forget that he still had the full attention of both Eames and Straub.

"Ummm . . ." She reached for a folder sitting on the corner of her desk and flipped it open. "First girl, high-heeled boot. Knee length, black leather."

Finally finding the pad of post-it notes he'd been looking for, he nodded and wrote that down on the top sheet, then peeled it off the pad and stuck it on his desk just to his left. "Next?"

"According to her roommate, a pink and black v-neck sweater."

Down that went on the next post-it, along with further notes that she couldn't read from across the desks. A few seconds later, belatedly realizing that she was waiting for him to finish writing, he circled one hand in the air, telling her to go on while he completed the note.

"The third girl . . . for the pants, I have no idea, but judging by the marks where he pulled her underwear off, it was a thong. One of those teeny-tiny ones."

Straub looked at her and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively in response to that. "Should I question how you were able to determine that, Detective?"

"I sure as hell wouldn't answer you if you did," she said dryly, flipping to the next page in the folder without sparing him a glance. "Part of her shirt tore off under her. It was red silk, but that's all I can tell you about that."

"Ok." Goren stuck the notes containing the second and third victims' clothing information next to the one holding the first victim's, then looked up at her. "Next one?"

"Demi-bra and blouse." When only silence answered that, she looked up and found both men eyeing her warily. "What?"

Straub caught Goren's eye and shook his head emphatically. "_You _ask, man. I'm not risking my ass."

Goren sighed, then cleared his throat and looked up at his partner. "Where'd you get the information on the bra?"

She blinked. "The style, you mean?"

"Uh, yeah."

"She had a line of irritation across her . . ." She trailed off there, realizing why they had been so apprehensive about asking. "I swear, you guys act like you've never seen a woman in her underwear before. She had a slight rash across her breasts. It happens when there's scratchy lace on your bra. And only a demi-bra would be cut almost down to the nipple, which is how low the irritation was. Any other questions, or can we move on?"

Kratzer, who happened to return just then with a chair, gave the tableau a curious look: Straub, barely restraining a smirk; Goren, staring at his hands; Eames, arms crossed and eyebrows raised as she looked at the two men with amusement. "Obviously I missed something interesting," he said as he set the chair down at the side of her desk.

"These two," she said with a shrug, "have apparently never stopped long enough to actually look at a woman's bra before tearing it off."

Goren hastily turned his attention to writing down the clothing information. Straub, having no such excuse to look away, tried again to glare at Eames but quickly found himself trying not to laugh, instead.

No good could come of pursuing a line of questioning that involved Eames and women's underwear, Kratzer knew instinctively as he watched the men's reactions. "Sorry I asked. Go on with whatever you were saying."

"Thank you." She returned her eyes to the folder. "The girl from yesterday was completely nude. It's -" She paused, examining a block of unfamiliar writing on the page, then looked up at the FBI agents. "Which one of you wrote this?"

"Me," Kratzer said after leaning over her shoulder to see where she was looking. "Her sister showed up at the scene. I got it from her."

"Ok." After taking another second to decipher the writing, she looked up at him in surprise. "Above-the-knee denim skirt and a backless shirt?" she read dubiously. "Are you sure, Ted? That's a little over-the-top for a grad student.."

He nodded, grimacing slightly. "It didn't sound particularly attractive to me, either, but that's what the sister said, and she saw her that morning."

Goren noted that down, then pulled that sheet off the pad and set it down with a flourish next to the other four. "So then we've got . . ." he began slowly, looking down at the line of notes spanning his desk, "a high-heeled shoe, a v-neck sweater, a, uh," - he cleared his throat - "a thong and a silk shirt, a demi-bra and a blouse, and a short skirt and a backless shirt."

"The v-neck," Straub said after a second's thought, walking around to Goren's side of the desks to get a better look at the notes. "Did the roommate say whether it was low-cut?"

Eames blinked in surprise. "Uh . . ." She looked down to consult the folder, nodded to herself, and then looked up and used one hand to point to a spot between her breasts. "About to here, she said."

Kratzer coughed and averted his eyes.

Straub, on the other hand, followed her gesture and then grinned widely, waving a hand at the post-its. "That's it, then."

"What's what?" she asked, dropping her hand and looking at him quizzically.

"High-heeled boot. Low-cut sweater," he replied, ticking the items off on the fingers of one hand. "Thong. Lacy bra. Short skirt and revealing shirt. All sexy."

"You think he took _sexy _items of clothing?" Eames asked, looking skeptical.

"It could fit," Goren said slowly. "Serial killings are almost always sexual killings. Maybe he's choosing his trophies by what fulfills that fantasy most."

"I'd say that's more creepy than anything," she commented with a shudder.

"Insecurity," Kratzer announced suddenly, causing all three of the others to look at him in search of further explanation. "Sexual insecurity. He's not just taking trophies that remind him of the kill," he went on. "He's taking trophies that he can use to remind himself of the kill _and _the sexuality. He has to have something tangible to bring him back to the sex . . ."

"Because he either can't or won't call it up for himself without the souvenir?" Straub finished, looking thoughtful. "It's twisted, Ted. I like it."


	18. Location, location, location!

"Alex."

At the sound of her partner's voice coming from only inches behind her, she froze in the act of refilling her coffee mug. She'd managed to avoid being alone with him all day up until then; it wasn't fair that now, at four o'clock, she was finding herself cornered. Scowling down into her mug, she attempted to relax her muscles enough to keep him from noticing her tension.

She'd impressed herself with her ability to come off as lighthearted for the past few hours. True, after Goren's attempt at an apology the night before, she did feel a bit better than she had in the days before that. At least she knew where she stood with him.

On the other hand, that didn't change the fact that he'd had sex with Danielle Matthews and seemed to see absolutely nothing wrong with that. It had actually surprised her that he was able to change gears - and women - so quickly. The Bobby she knew wasn't a multiple-woman type. Then again, the Bobby she knew was also perceptive enough to know when he was dealing with a woman who was petty, short-tempered, or clingy. Or all of the above.

"Alex," he said again, taking another step forward and touching a hand lightly to her waist.

Forcibly pushing her musings out of her head, she went back to pouring the coffee and said without turning around, "What?"

"You're avoiding me."

"No, I'm not." Pulling away from his hand, she turned toward the counter and set down her mug so she could add sugar to it. "I've been sitting across from you all day. Kind of hard to avoid someone when you're doing that."

He sighed and closed the gap between them again. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Go away, Bobby. Let me get my coffee in peace. You can get on my case when I get back to my desk, if you must."

"With Mutt and Jeff looking on?" He laughed. "They'd let me get out all of five words before one of them jumped in and tried to divert my attention."

"What's wrong with that?" she challenged, picking up her mug and reluctantly turning to face him where he stood between her and the door.

"Since when do you need two FBI bodyguards?"

She gave him snide look as she tried to brush past him. "Since you started dating a women who likes to attack me, apparently. They're just trying to help."

He grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop before she could get out of the room. "She's not -"

"Don't even try it," she interrupted, slapping a hand over his mouth. "We've already had this discussion, remember?"

Determinedly, he pulled her even farther away from the door. "Doesn't seem to have been successful, though."

She stole a nervous glance over her shoulder at the doorway, praying that no one else would decide that now was a good time to refresh their caffeine supply, then tried to yank her arm out of his hold. "And whose fault was that?"

"I'll let you know when I figure it out."

"Damnit, Bobby!" Determined to get out of the room even if she had to drag him with her, she pulled her arm out of his grasp, dug in her heels, and made another break for the door.

Goren, who had just begun to relax, was too surprised by the movement to react for a second. By the time he got to her, she was halfway across the room, and, anticipating a strong resistance from her, he grabbed the only part of her he could reach - her wrist - and swung her around, trying to get her to face him again.

He'd misjudged the amount of force necessary to pull her back to him, though, and a startled Eames found herself thrown up against the wall instead of just pulled in front of him. "Ow!" she yelped as the corner of the mini-fridge that sat against the wall jabbed her in the hip.

"Uh, sorry." Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, however, he immediately closed the gap between them, using his arms to trap her against the mini-fridge. "You ok?" he asked quietly, lowering his head toward hers.

"I'm fine," she bit out. "Now let me go."

He inched forward another step. "I want you to listen to me."

"Bobby . . ." He was practically on top of her, she realized as his leg brushed against hers. And while her mischievous id was tempted to happily let him do whatever he wanted to her as long as it involved his warm touch, the more logical part of her reminded her that not only was she still angry with him, but they could be interrupted at any second. After a momentary struggle, the responsible part of her won the mental tug-of-war and she defensively crossed her arms between them and lifted her chin, glaring at him. "Stop it."

He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out as his eyes locked onto hers and whatever they had been talking about faded into the background of his consciousness.

She realized with growing alarm that not only did he appear oblivious to their current whereabouts, but he was preparing to kiss her. In the middle of the break room. "Bobby, no!" she said sharply, putting one hand at the top of his chest and pushing, and the other hand on his arm, trying to pry it away from the wall.

"What's going on in here?"

The sound of a new, masculine voice pulled Bobby back to reality, and he jerked his head up in shock. "Alex . . ."

She just shook her head and shoved him away, ducking out from under his arm and promptly coming face-to-face with a fierce-looking Eddie Straub. "It's ok -" she began, only to be interrupted when he pushed past her, glared at Goren, and demanded again, "What's going on in here?"

"Nothing!" she said before her partner could even open his mouth. Not waiting to find out if things could get any worse, she grabbed the agent by the back of the shirt and started towing him out of the room, telling him as they went, "It's nothing, Eddie. We were fighting and he got carried away."

He twisted his head around to look down at her disbelievingly as she pulled him along. "That didn't look like a fight to me, Alex. It looked like he was -"

"He wasn't," she said quickly. "Getting in people's faces is normal for him. You should see him with a suspect. He terrifies them by just getting that close."

"You don't look particularly scared," he pointed out, reaching around to pull his shirt out of her grasp but still following her toward her desk.

"I'm not. Annoyed, yes, but scared? Nah. He wouldn't hurt me."_ At least, not physically. _"Look," she said, suddenly more serious as she turned to face him, "don't make a big deal of this, ok? I'm not hurt or anything, and trust me, he's not going to do it again anytime soon."

"He -"

"- is probably standing in the break room wanting to die of embarrassment right now," she finished for him. "Give him a break."

"I want to hear that from him," he said stubbornly.

"And you can. Just not until the two of you have cooled down, because if I have to referee a fight in the middle of the squad room today, I'm going to kill you both and end it that way."

Kratzer, catching sight of them as they approached the desks, started to say something, then stopped when he saw the looks on their faces. "Guys? Is anything wrong?"

"Everything's fine," she said, dredging up a smile for him, then turning to give Straub a warning glare. "Right, Eddie?"

Straub, no fool, sighed and then nodded. "Right. Everything's just fine, Ted."

* * *

A/N: Hehe, Eames in damage-control mode is so amusing!  



	19. Rematch

Alex got to her feet two hours later and bent to retrieve her purse from under her desk. When she straightened back up, she narrowly missed banging the top of her head into the chin of the man bending over her. "Jesus!" she gasped, putting a hand over her heart and backing up a step. "Haven't you commandeered a desk for yourself yet? Or did you plan on sitting on my lap?"

Straub gave her a sheepish smile and mirrored her step back with one of his own. "Sorry. Thought you were going to keep moving."

"Mmm." Giving him a skeptical smile, she set her purse down on her chair and looked up at him. "Why were you tagging along behind me in the first place?"

"Got plans for tonight?"

She'd expected something more pressing, given how closely he was sticking to her. With a roll of her eyes, she turned back to her desk. "Depends on why you're asking."

Behind her back, Straub grinned at Kratzer, who was sitting on the corner of Goren's desk, and then bent forward, putting his face next to hers and stage-whispering, "What do you think about letting two overworked G-men take you out for a drink? You name the bar."

"I don't think . . ." She stopped there, noticing that across from her, Goren had stiffened but was avoiding looking up at her. _Embarrassed about what I might say to them, Bobby? _she thought, allowing herself a tiny smirk. _Serves you right._

"You don't think what?" Straub prompted after a second's silence.

She blinked, stole another look at her partner, and then smiled at Straub. "I don't think you tough guys would like my favorite place. Too trendy. But I happen to know of another good place a couple blocks from here."

"Sounds good to me!" Kratzer announced, hopping off the desk and moving to stand next to her. "Lead on."

"Eames . . ."

She turned to look at questioningly Goren, who had spoken so quietly that she wasn't sure if he'd said her name or if she'd just imagined it.

"I wanted to -"

"Sorry, man," Straub said, sounding both cheerful and a trifle malicious as he glanced at Goren, then turned away and slung an arm over Eames's shoulders. "You have her practically every day; she's ours for tonight."

Unable to help herself, she laughed. "Gee, it's nice to feel wanted. Just . . ." A well-timed shrug of her shoulders displaced his arm. ". . . not _that _wanted. I'm ready whenever you guys are."

"Eames," Goren tried again.

She sighed and reluctantly turned to look at him. "Whatever it is, Bobby, it can wait 'til tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning."

* * *

"Ok, so," Straub said a few hours later, eyeing her over the rim of his glass, "you want to tell me what the hell Goren was doing to you back in the break room?"

Kratzer, who had been mid-sip, choked on his mouthful of beer, set his glass down, and gave Straub a probing look. "What? What do you mean -" He cut himself off there and moved his eyes to Alex. "What was he doing that Eddie has to ask what he was doing?"

"He wasn't doing anything," she muttered, keeping her eyes on her own drink. "We were fighting. He forgets about personal space when he gets worked up."

" 'Worked up'? The more I hear, the less I'm liking this," Kratzer said slowly. "Eddie, tell me what happened."

"Well, Alex went to get some coffee, and -"

"Don't," she said sharply, looking up to catch Straub's eye. "This is not an issue I need you guys to help me with, ok?"

"Look, the guy's twice your size and he had you up against a wall. Either you explain to me why I _don't _need to be worried about that, or I'm going to keep worrying. Among other things."

She set her drink down on the table and gave him a hard look. "No, _you _look. I've known him for five years. You haven't even known him for five days. Bobby would _not _hurt me."

Kratzer, who was regarding both Eames and Straub warily, held up a hand to stop their budding argument. "Would one of you please tell me what the hell happened?"

"Exactly what I just _said _happened," she snapped. "We were arguing. He got in my face. The genius over here decided that would be a good time to come marching into the room and freak out."

"Hey," Straub shot back defensively, "it looked like he was about three seconds from trying to get into something that definitely wasn't your _face_."

He had no idea how close he'd come to the truth, she thought, swallowing hard. There was complete silence for what felt to her like forever before she could even open her mouth. "I, uh -" she managed in a strangled voice, then stopped, unable to think of what else to say.

Straub, reveling in the success of his joke, appeared to be oblivious to her discomfort, but Kratzer leaned toward her, catching her eye and opening his mouth.

Her phone rang.

* * *

"What's wrong with you lately?" Danielle asked Goren, taking her eyes off the body they were both studying long enough to give him a critical look. "The least you could have done was called me."

Goren cleared his throat and wondered why he had allowed himself to be convinced to start the examination before anyone else arrived. At the moment, he'd have given anything to have one of his partner's "bodyguards" running interference for him. Hell, even Alex, herself, would help, although he'd probably pay the price afterward. "I haven't exactly had a lot of free time this week," he muttered, keeping his eyes down so he didn't have to meet hers.

"Oh, bull. You're always working your ass off, but before this week, you never had a problem with calling or stopping by."

"Danielle," he said repressively, "can we save this discussion for some time when we're not standing in the middle of the morgue, waiting for my partner?"

"Your partner," she snorted, not bothering to disguise her distaste. "I don't see why you had to call her in, anyway. It's not like you can't remember things for yourself and then tell her in the morning."

"She's my partner." He bent lower over the body, examining the light bruising on the victim's upper thighs. "If I need to be here, she needs to be here. These bruises - do you have a time estimate?"

"Shortly before her throat was cut. They'd have been darker if her blood had pumped for more than a few minutes afterward." Moving easily, as if it were part of her examination, she circled around the table to stand next to where he was still bending over, and put a hand on his shoulder, ostensibly to balance herself as she leaned forward. "She's not the brains of your operation. And you know, for some godforsaken reason she's decided she hates me. I would just rather not deal with her if I didn't have to."

He looked up at her with mild surprise. "You haven't exactly been -"

He was interrupted by the sound of the door hissing open and Kratzer's voice saying, "Looks like we're late to the party, guys."

Straightening up, he looked over his shoulder at Straub and Kratzer, who were strolling into the room with Eames sandwiched between them. "Hi, guys. Sorry -"

"Eh," Straub said with an unconcerned wave of his hand, at the same time glancing meaningfully at the hand Danielle still had on Goren's arm. "Obviously you had an incentive to get started before you had an audience. Evening, Doc."

Danielle gave him a sour smile and looked up at Bobby. "You didn't tell me she was bringing her, uh, friends."

"I didn't know she was," he replied with complete honesty, looking to Eames for an explanation.

She just looked back at him, a smug smile tugging at her lips. "You just pulled me away from the first night I've had in a long time where I wasn't buying my own drinks, Bobby. This better be good."

"I, uh . . ." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, wondering what she had been discussing with the FBI agents over said drinks. "The residue on her thighs . . . it was semen. He must have fumbled the condom."

"Yeah?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and turning to the medical examiner. "Does the fact that you hauled us all out here mean you got a hit on it?"

"I didn't 'haul' you anywhere, Detective," Danielle shot back. "I just called Bobby. He was the one who insisted you be here too."

Alex glanced at her partner, who was avoiding her eyes. "Interesting. So then you _didn't _get a hit?"

"No." Without looking to see if anyone was following her, Danielle crossed the room to where a computer and a printer sat. "The profile came out really clean," she said, gesturing to the sequence of DNA markers showing on the screen, "but whoever the guy is, he's not in CODIS, as a scene sample or as an offender."

"Shit," Straub muttered.

"Yeah, I'll second that," Alex said, turning to look at him with a resigned smile.

"Danielle," Goren said, "what _can _you tell us?"

"White male," she said with a shrug. "Type B-negative. Secretor."

"B-negative's not that common," Eames said thoughtfully. "Not that that does us any good without a donor sample to compare it to."

"Indeed," Danielle said, giving her a cool look. "But then, I'm sure you'll think of a way to get a sample. Bobby tells me you used to work in Vice . . ."

"Collecting 'samples' wasn't part of my job description," Alex snapped. "And you shouldn't rely on everything _Bobby _tells you. He's been known to lie."

"Alex . . ." he attempted.

"Be quiet," she admonished, hardly sparing him a look. "Dr. Matthews, did you find anything _useful _on the body, or are we done here?"

Danielle smiled. "You can go any time you want, Detective. Like I said,_ I_ didn't think you needed to be here."

There was a moment of silence as Eames assimilated the woman's newest insult, and then she crossed her arms and smiled tightly. "What, exactly, is your problem with me, Doctor?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes," Eames said evenly, "you do. So either tell me now, or shut the hell up about it."

Practically snarling in response to that, Danielle grabbed Alex by the arm and dragged her away from the men. "You want to know what my problem is, _Detective_?" she hissed. "Fine. _You _are my problem. You get your kicks by getting in my way, especially when it comes to Bobby. I warned you once before to stay away from him, and you're still following along on his coattails."

She'd figured out all that for herself. "What's your point?"

"My _point_?" Danielle echoed angrily. "My _point _is, go get yourself a boyfriend and stay the hell out of my relationship with mine." She paused, then smiled toothily. "Or are you more in the market for a _girl_friend? That could explain a lot."

Alex could feel her heart pounding in anger, but she wrestled the emotion into submission, telling herself that she could vent when she got home. "You can't have it both ways," she told Danielle, managing to assume a look of complete indifference. "Either I'm a lesbian who's skinny and acts like a man, or I'm a man-eater trying to steal your boyfriend. Pick one and stick with it, if you refuse to just leave me alone."

"I'll call you whatever I want. What are you going to do, go crying to Bobby?"

"She doesn't need to come crying to me," Goren spoke up from behind her, startling both women. "I can see it for myself. Leave her alone, Danielle."

"I . . ." Danielle began, pinning a smile on her face and turning to look at him. "I'm not the one who's causing the problem, Bobby."

"Yes, you are." He put a tentative arm around his partner's shoulders, watching her face to make sure she wouldn't protest, then looked back at Danielle. "Eames gets along with everyone. She even forces herself to get along with people she detests, and that includes you. It's you who keeps trying to start a war, and I want it to stop."

"You're picking her over me?" Danielle fumed, glaring daggers at Alex.

"Yeah, I guess I am. I can't date someone who sees my partner as competition. It wouldn't work, Danielle."

She stared at him for a second, then let out a harsh laugh. "I guess this explains why you haven't called me. Fine. If you want to screw your partner, who am I to interfere? Hope you have fun. Now, get out of my morgue."

"Nobody's 'screwing' anybody, Danielle."

"Get out of my morgue!"

Goren jumped at an unexpected tap on his shoulder, and turned to find Kratzer smirking at him. "You heard the woman. I suggest we beat it before she comes after you with a scalpel."


	20. Strangers on a train

A/N: I know, I know, I know! My muse is on summer vacation, I think. That's the only reason I can think of for why I have had zero story inspiration lately. White Hat's still not forgotten, either...just in desperate need of a short-term plotline.

* * *

The group walked out of the Medical Examiner's building together, but Goren grabbed his partner's wrist before she could follow the two FBI agents, who had started down the sidewalk toward the bar they'd come from. "Wait," he said quietly.

She'd been concentrating so hard on pretending he wasn't there that she couldn't pull herself to a stop in time and ended up yo-yoing backward with a startled gasp as his grip on her reversed her momentum. "Bobby!"

Her yelp alerted the agents, who were halfway down the block by that time, and they turned in unison to see what was wrong. "Alex?" Kratzer called concernedly. Without waiting for a response, both men started back toward where Goren and Eames stood.

Goren gave her wrist another tug, trying to regain her attention. "I need to talk to you," he said in a forceful whisper, keeping one eye on the approaching men and one eye on her. "Without them."

"I don't think tonight is -"

Before she could get out the rest of the protest, Kratzer jogged the last few feet between them and put a hand on her other arm. "What's going on?"

She shook off his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. "Nothing. We're just talking."

"Well, you can talk to him tomorrow," Straub said as he appeared beside Kratzer. "Tonight, Ted and I owe you a few more drinks."

Goren still hadn't relinquished his hold on her, and shot him a pointed look, hissing, "Let go!" as she gave her arm a shake.

He just shook his head and tightened his grip.

"Alex?" Kratzer prompted, eyeing Goren's hand with obvious displeasure. "You coming?"

She glanced at him, then at Goren, whose eyes were silently entreating her to get rid of the men. "I, uh . . . you guys go ahead. I'm about ready to call it a night."

Kratzer, no idiot, just crossed his arms and gave her a look that demanded an explanation.

Trying not to squirm under his knowing scrutiny, she cleared her throat and glanced again at her partner, who was watching her closely. "Really, Ted," she finally said, "I'm tired. You guys can go. Bobby'll make sure I get home ok."

"That," Straub said, his eyes on the hand Goren still had on her and his voice dripping with contempt, "is what we're afraid of."

She shook off her partner's hand and moved to stand in front of Straub, giving him a warning look. "Go. Away," she ordered with quiet vehemence. "I told you before, I'll be ok with him."

The two agents exchanged looks, then seemed to mutually reach a tacit decision. "Ok," Kratzer told her reluctantly. "But we're keeping our phones on. Just, you know . . ." He glanced over his shoulder at Goren. "Just in case."

Relaxing slightly now that she'd won, she just rolled her eyes at him. "Right, 'just in case.' Good night, guys."

* * *

"What did Straub mean, 'that's what he was afraid of'?" Goren asked warily as they settled down into a pair of seats in a nearly-empty subway car ten minutes later.

That was the last thing she wanted to discuss tonight. "Nothing," she muttered shortly.

"Alex."

She sighed. "When he walked in on us in the break room . . . it just looked bad, ok?"

He stared at her, mildly horrified by the realization of what he must have appeared to Straub to have been doing. "He, uh . . . I mean, I'm sorry about that."

"I know you are." Not sure what else to say, she looked down at her hands, which were worrying the fabric of her jacket, and fell silent.

"I shouldn't have cornered you. I . . . got distracted."

"Bobby," she sighed, pulling a loose thread out of the seam of her coat, "I know. Just leave it."

"Sorry." And then, before he could stop himself, he reached out and took hold of her hand, pulling it away from the thread she was worrying. "You're going to end up with a shredded hem."

She stared at their joined hands for a second, then gave her head a little shake and looked up at him. "What?"

"Your jacket. If you keep pulling on that thread, you're going to unravel it," he told her. Then, deciding to take a chance, he hesitantly threaded his fingers through hers and brought their hands to rest on his knee.

"Bobby . . ."

"I'm sorry about Danielle," he broke in before he could lose his nerve. "How she treated you tonight, I mean . . . and . . . and me not noticing it earlier."

Almost without realizing it, she held her breath, waiting for him to continue into the most important part of the apology he owed her, but he didn't. When it became clear after a few seconds that he just wasn't going to, she let the breath out quietly, pulled her hand out of his, and inched away from him on the seat.

"Alex?" he asked, confused by the unexplained movement.

"This was a bad idea."

"What?" When she didn't respond, he followed her move, sliding across the seat toward her. "You mean coming with me tonight? Why?"

She shook her head and moved away again.

"If you keep doing that, you're going to fall off the end of the seat," he pointed out with a tentative smile. "And I don't know if I can move fast enough to catch you."

"Bobby, don't," she snapped, getting to her feet as gracefully as she could in the swaying car and moving to a seat across the aisle from him.

"Don't what? I'm trying to apologize!"

She gave him an incredulous look. "You really have no idea why I'm upset, do you?"

"I . . ." He stood up and, using the pole that ran the length of the car above his head for balance, crossed the aisle and leaned down to look into her face. "No, I guess I don't."

"Figures," she sniffed, crossing her arms and looking away again.

"Alex, come on. I'm trying to make peace. Tell me what I need to do."

Her first instinct was to give him a cold, _I'm not discussing this here_, but when she reminded herself that she was stuck with him at least until they reached his stop and she could turn around and flee back into the tunnels, she knew that just ignoring the issue would take her nowhere. Finally, she sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and turned her head back toward him. "Are you sorry you slept with her?"

He blinked. "What?"

"It's a self-explanatory question. Answer it."

"I . . . that's what you're upset about?" he asked disbelievingly.

Alex just stared stonily at him, but an elderly Asian woman in the corner of the car, who had appeared to be asleep when they boarded, suddenly spoke up. "You tell her 'yes, you sorry,'" she ordered loudly, sounding very much like a stern grandmother trying to imbue her grandchild with manners. "Your own fault, for sleep with other woman."

Both detectives gaped at her, earning themselves a beatific smile in return before she turned away, tucked her head into her shoulder, and appeared to fall back into a peaceful sleep.

Bobby swallowed nervously and turned his eyes back to his partner. "Alex, I -"

"Stupid men," the old woman trumpeted cheerfully without looking up, startling both of them.

Trying to fight the smiles that were threatening, they both eyed her for a long moment, waiting for the next outburst, but it never came; this time she seemed to be truly unconscious.

"Alex," Bobby tried again, more quietly, "if that's what you're upset about . . . I thought . . . I mean, I just figured you understood . . ."

Going back to the thread she'd been playing with, she kept her eyes down. "Understood what?"

"The night with her . . ." He sighed. "I thought it was obvious that it's the biggest mistake I've made in . . . well, in a long time."

"Obvious to _me_, maybe," she replied. "But to you?"

Moving slowly in case she decided to lash out, he lowered himself into the seat next to her and pulled her hand away from her jacket again, this time keeping a hold on it when she tried to move away. "I was using her as a replacement to begin with," he said haltingly. "And she took it . . . that, uh, night . . . as a license to hurt you. And I let her."

Alex waited.

"And then _I _hurt you by letting you find out about it. It . . . the whole thing was stupid of me."

"Oh."

"Alex?" He tightened his grip on her hand and leaned forward, trying to see her downturned face. "Am I doing . . . I mean, is this what you wanted to hear?" Her response was more silence, and he sighed and leaned closer to try again. "Come on, please."

Without moving any other part of herself, she turned her head to look at him. "Is this for real, or are you making it up as you go along because you know it's what I want to hear?"

With her facing him now, his lips were only inches away from hers, and he couldn't resist the urge to steal a kiss.

"Bobby!" she gasped, half out loud and half into his mouth, and raised one hand to grip his shoulder.

He pulled back slightly, just enough to allow him to take her chin in his hand, and smiled slightly. "This . . . is . . . for real," he murmured, dropping a light kiss on her lips after each word. "Believe me, Alex. Please."

Her hand slid up from his shoulder to loop around his neck and she leaned her weight into him. "I think I do," she sighed before tipping her head up for another kiss.

"Smart man!" the old woman called approvingly, lifting her head to smile at them. "You figure it out eventually."

Unable to help themselves, even in the middle of a kiss, both detectives burst out laughing.


	21. Finally

A/N: This whole chapter is basically not-very-explicit smut. You've been warned.

* * *

Neither of them was laughing by the time they reached his apartment half an hour later. Bobby's grip on her hand had tightened so much that it was almost painful, but Alex, wondering what in the world she was doing following this lion into his den, was too distracted to protest as she allowed herself to be led inside.

He paused a few feet into the apartment, let go of her hand, and moved his hands to her shoulders. "Alex."

She pulled to a surprised stop at the touch and looked up at him. "What?"

"Are we . . ." He broke off to drop a feather-light kiss on her forehead, then let his lips linger there as he went on, "Are we ok? I need you to understand . . ."

She leaned into him, nodding. "I do. But there's something I need _you_ to understand, too," she added as she wound her arms around his neck.

Distracted by the sensation of her breasts pressing into his chest, he barely managed to mumble, "What?"

"If we do this . . . tonight . . ." Her head settled into the hollow of his shoulder as she stretched her body up, and her lips brushed his neck, eliciting a soundless shudder from him. "If we do this, that's it. No rewinding, no backpedaling. No more going to Danielle, or anyone else, because you're angry at me. Do you understand me?"

"Alex -" he began, speaking into her hair.

Before he could say anything else, she kept going. "Tonight is your second chance. And I don't think I have it in me to give you a third, Bobby."

"Alex," he said again, touching her cheek lightly with one hand in an effort to bring her words to a halt.

She let out a breath against the skin of his neck, but said nothing more.

He put two fingers under her chin and forced it up so he could see her eyes. "_You _are what I've been hiding from. I'd . . . I'd rather fight with you than go to bed with someone else, so as long as I have you - as long as you want me to have you - you're it."

She acknowledged that with a short, silent nod, and then brushed his fingers away and turned her face into his neck again, trailing light kisses down from his jawline to the collar of his shirt. "This is a bad idea," she mumbled between kisses. "For so many reasons."

One of his hands slipped down to rest on her hip, fingers skimming daringly over the skin above the waistband of her pants. "Do you want to stop?" he asked quietly, even as he pulled her closer to him and savored the touch of her lips.

She shook her head and abandoned his neck long enough to pull her head back and look up at him with a tiny smile. "Half the things I do with you on any given day are bad ideas." Noticing the intensity in his eyes, she paused long enough to allow him to dip his head and kiss her hungrily, then pulled back after a few seconds and gave him a teasing shake of her head. "But somehow, most of them seem to work out ok."

"Alex . . ." Without warning, he dropped his hands to her shoulders again and pushed her back against the wall.

Keeping her arms around his neck, she allowed herself to be moved, smothering a giggle when he didn't seem to notice that he'd moved so quickly and was pressing her so firmly against the wall that her feet had left the ground and were dangling an inch above the carpet. "Why, Detective! Where's your self control?" she murmured, using one of her homeless feet to rub his ankle teasingly.

His response was to groan and thrust a hand into her hair, dislodging the clip that she had been using to hold it back. Surprised at feeling plastic instead of skin, he pulled his hand back and opened his eyes to see what he was holding. It took him a second to identify it in the semi-darkness, and then he gave her a sheepish look and held it up."Uh, sorry."

Without speaking, she just took it from him and clipped it to her shirt just above one hip, then turned her attention to tugging his shirt out of his pants so she could get her hands on his skin. "Bobby . . ."

He groaned again, the muscles of his abdomen reflexively tightening at the touch of her hand, and bent one of her legs up to his hip, his thumb caressing her thigh through the slightly rough fabric of her wool slacks.

The movement brought her hips forward, and she let out a quiet sigh at the feel of his hardness against her, then redoubled her efforts to render his upper body bare. "Too many layers," she muttered against his shoulder as she pushed his shirt off it.

That got a quiet chuckle out of Bobby, and he stopped kissing her long enough to pull back and look pointedly at the suit jacket and blouse she was still wearing. "You're telling me."

"Then why don't you do something about it?" she challenged with a grin.

That was all the encouragement he needed, and within seconds he'd pulled her jacket down her arms, tossed it to the side, and latched his mouth onto her neck while he toyed with the top button of her blouse. "Better?"

"Mmmm. Off," she managed through a groan, trying to pull his undershirt over his head without moving hers.

He gently pushed her head away and obeyed the order, not paying attention long enough to watch the shirt land on the floor next to her jacket. "Your turn."

"Oh, is it?" she said with a smirk, touching one finger to his lips and then slowly trailing it down to the top of his pants. "I kind of like the status quo, actually."

"I bet you do." He nipped lightly at her neck and then laved the spot with his tongue, earning himself a shudder and a thrust of her hips, and returned his hands to her buttons, this time making quick work of them. "Ah," he managed reverently as he parted the sides of the blouse and slid it down her arms. "Alex . . ."

Not giving him time to continue, she tightened her arms around his neck, hooked her raised leg around his waist, and kissed him, hard.

The action ripped a moan out of him. Clamping a hand down on her hip, he thrust up against her and dropped his head to kiss the top of her breasts, which were being displayed by a bra that was black and white, satiny, and way too trying to his self-control.

"Bobby," she breathed, arching her back to give him better access. "You - ah!" Her words dropped off and she let her head fall back against the wall as he took the hint and closed his mouth over the satin covering one nipple, at the same time bringing the hand he had on her hip around to work on the fly of her pants.

She moaned thickly as the zipper gave way and his fingers dipped inside to skim over the top of her panties. Bedroom manners dictated that she should return the favor, but for some reason all she could do as his touch moved closer, then teasingly trailed away again, was press her face into his neck and try to keep breathing.

He felt her teeth sink into his neck and smiled to himself as he continued his ministrations, finally venturing under the fabric and feeling her whole body tighten in response.

"Jesus Christ, Bobby," she panted.

"Hmm?" he hummed smugly against her mouth, enjoying his newfound ability to steal her self-control.

She lifted her other leg to hook it around his waist, too, smirking back at him when he sucked in a breath in response to the increased pressure the position caused against his erection. "This might be more comfortable if you didn't have to hold me up and try to undress me at the same time," she murmured, twining her arms around his neck. "Want to give the bed a try?"

His hips jerked involuntarily and he groaned against her cheek, then tightened his hold on her and turned toward his bedroom.


	22. Tape recorder

"Where the _hell_ have you been?" Straub snapped late the next morning, scrutinizing Eames closely and not bothering to disguise it as the two detectives made their first appearance in the squad room. "Fucking coffee's been cold for two damn hours."

"Play nice or you're going to find yourself eating a bar of soap for lunch," Eames told him coolly, dropping into her desk chair with a sigh. "For your information, Bobby and I have been out being productive all morning."

"Oh yeah?" Kratzer, a donut in one hand and a pen in the other, looked up from Goren's desk, where he had been sitting in the detectives' absence. "And what've you produced?"

She pulled a small tape recorder from her pocket and set it on the desk in front of him. "Robert Daugherty's alibi. Interested?"

He gave her a look of surprised approval and nodded.

"Thought so," she said with a smirk, then pressed the Play button on the device.

The group fell silent as Goren and Eames's interview with Daugherty began to play:

_"Dr. Daugherty," said Eames. "Thank you for agreeing to talk to us. I'm Detective Eames, and this is Detective Goren. We're from Manhattan Major Case and we'd like to ask you a few questions about -"_

_"My girls," Daugherty finished before she could. _His voice practically radiated confidence, and the FBI agents listening to it exchanged a curious look, then returned their eyes to the tape recorder as Daugherty continued speaking. "_Hillary and Lili, I mean."_

_"Uh, yes," Goren said slowly. "You . . . you call them your 'girls' . . . is that a pet name you use for your female students?"_

_"No, no," Daugherty said, sounding alarmed by the implication in Goren's words. "Well, I mean, it's what I call them, yes, but not all my female students. Hillary and Lili were my advisees; I worked closely with them."_

_"Closely?" Eames broke in. "How closely, exactly?"_

_Daugherty sputtered for a few seconds before getting his verbal legs back under him: "Not _that _closely, madam. I assume that you are familiar with the past accusation of sexual harassment that was leveled against me by an old student; you can be sure I learned my lesson after that."_

_"You 'learned your lesson'?" Eames echoed. "You sexually harassed the girl - you offered to trade her grades for a date - and then, when she refused, you stalked her. Excuse us if we find it a little hard to believe you've wiped that slate clean."_

_"Are you sure you didn't have a crush on Hillary?" Goren asked. "Or maybe Liliana? They were attractive girls."_

_"They . . . they were _half _my age!" Daugherty snapped. "I have a daughter the same age as Lili!"_

_"Didn't stop you last time."_

_A hand slapped down loudly on a desktop. "If you're here to hurl accusations, Detectives, then I'm done with this conversation."_

_"Sorry, sir," Goren said on a placating laugh. "We tend to get, you know, caught up in our theories. Let's talk about 'your' girls, how's that?"_

_Daughterty's answer was a grunt._

_"What . . . what was Hillary like? We know she was a - what is it called? - 'non-traditional' student?"_

_There were a few seconds of silence, and then Daugherty sighed. "Yes, that's what we call them. Hillary had recently gotten divorced and decided to go back to school. She was a promising researcher."_

_"How did you know she was divorced?" Goren asked. "I mean, did you discuss things like your personal lives, in passing?"_

_"I'm friendly with all my advisees. I regularly have the whole group over for dinner. We've discussed everything from the social implications of blogging to the pregnancy worries of the wife of one of my other students."_

_"Eclectic," Eames murmured._

_"Yes. Hillary and Lili were both very good students, and personable colleagues. They put most of their energy into school. Hillary was divorced, like I said, and Lili . . . I don't think she even had a boyfriend."_

_"The clothes she was wearing the day she was killed," Eames said evenly, "don't seem to support that. They were very revealing. Stuff someone five years younger would be wearing."_

_"She always dressed appropriately for classes," Daugherty said. "I can't speak to what she wore on her off-time."_

_"Hmm."_

_"Doctor?" Goren spoke up. "We need to ask this - you know, just to keep away any loose ends - can you tell us your whereabouts late Sunday night and early Monday morning, when Hillary died? And Wednesday morning, for Liliana?"_

_"I . . . what? Am I . . . you think I did this?" Daugherty stammered. "That's ridiculous!"_

_"Well," Eames told him, "there's one easy way to clear it up: tell us where you were."_

_Daugherty cleared his throat, then sighed. "Sunday night, I was home with my wife. And no, I don't have any receipts or anything to prove it," he added before either detective could speak. "Wednesday, I would have been here, in my office."_

_"Can anyone confirm that?" Eames asked. "Maybe a student came to see you, or you had coffee with a co-worker?" There were a few seconds of silence, and then she said, "You're shaking your head 'no'?"_

_"Yeah. I mean, no. I didn't see anyone." He groaned. "Damn it, there's almost never anyone around on Wednesday mornings! Wednesday mornings are the time slot we purposely leave empty, for office hours and faculty meetings!"_

_Eames sighed. "And I suppose the only person who saw you Sunday night was your wife? No visitors, no pizza delivery?"_

_"No. Listen, Sara - my wife - she's a trustworthy woman. She wouldn't lie to the police. You can go ask her if I was home, and she'll say yes, because it's _true_."_

_"Right," Eames said dryly. "Well, you can rest assured we'll be talking to her soon. But for now . . ."_

_"Thank you for your time, sir," Goren finished for her._

Neither Kratzer nor Straub said anything as Eames picked up the recorder and hit the Rewind button, then returned it to her pocket. "Guys?" she finally said, giving them an expectant look. "Opinions?"

"Squirrel," Kratzer said shortly.

"Learned his lesson, my ass," Straub agreed. "Only lesson those guys learn is to kill the girls when they're done with them, to keep from being identified."

Alex nodded. "Well, his alibi's useless. No matter what he says about what a saint she is, we can't take the wife's word for it."

"A blood sample would be the best thing we could get from him," Kratzer said, "to compare to the semen the M.E. found on the last girl."

"No probable cause, no blood sample," Goren said with a shake of his head. "The DA would laugh at us."

"So . . . what?" Straub asked. "Me, I'd say we pull his phone records and see if he took any calls Wednesday morning. If he did, that'd exclude him from the Zamora death, and by probable extension, the other three. If he didn't, then we've shown that he has no alibi for at least two of the killings."

"We can do phone dumps," Eames said, reaching for her phone. "You three, talk amongst yourselves while the woman does the work."

* * *

"So, what do you think?" Straub asked over the rim of his coffee mug as he, Kratzer, and the prodigal D'Argenzio watched Goren and Eames head for the elevators that evening.

"No bruises in two whole days," Kratzer said with a grin. "Things are looking up."

"_Bruises_?" D'Argenzio asked incredulously. "On who? What the hell did I miss?"

"A _lot_." Kratzer raised his eyebrows and grinned. "I hope you at least got a date out of all that mooning you've been doing over Barek, because you've been missing a hell of a soap opera over on this side of the room."

Straub chuckled. "You could call it that. Or you could call it an epic girlfight. But Ted's right, I want to hear about the black hole of a detective you disappeared into for the last week. She's cute."

D'Argenzio swallowed uncomfortably and looked away from the two men. "She's none of your business."

"Not a chance, Junior," Straub grinned, giving D'Argenzio a friendly slap on the back. "Tell us on your own or we'll drag it out of you. Did you get her to go with you?"

He scowled, crossing his arms defensively. "Who says I even asked her to go out with me?"

Ignoring that, Straub just repeated the question. "Did you get her to go out with you?"

"No," D'Argenzio snapped. "There, happy?"

"Why? She shoot you down?" Kratzer persisted.

D'Argenzio looked away and mumbled something unintelligible.

"Come again?" Straub leaned closer, making a show of cupping a hand around his ear.

"I said, her partner shot me down."

"Her partner?" Kratzer and Straub exchanged looks of confusion. "What's he got to do with it?"

D'Argenzio coughed and, in spite of himself, cracked a smile. "Judging by what they were doing when I walked in on them in an interview room this afternoon, a lot."

"You shittin' me?" Straub asked, wide-eyed. Then, meeting Kratzer's eyes, he burst out laughing. "This place is a fucking no-tell motel! I swear to god, I'm switching agencies. Get myself a desk here and hope they give me a cute partner so I can follow the trend."

"Trend?" D'Argenzio asked blankly.

"Yeah, trend. On this squad, it's starting to look like everyone dates their partner."

"Or," Kratzer interjected, "at least tries to. You think they got it worked out, Eddie?"

Straub shrugged. "Well, like you said, no new bruises. And she didn't look pissed at him this morning. That's a change."

"Hmm." Kratzer gave that a second's thought, then grinned and looked over his shoulder at the elevators the two detectives had disappeared into a few minutes ago. "Come to think of it, they _did _seem kind of in a hurry to get out of here tonight . . ."

Straub smirked. "I'll keep my eyes open for hickeys in the morning instead of bruises."


	23. Access denied

A/N: As you've probably noticed, I'm not producing much fanfic this summer. For those of you who haven't checked my profile, I'm basically taking a hiatus from fanficcing in favor of working on an original-characters novel. There may be scattered updates like this one, but for the most part, don't expect anything out of me in the near future.

* * *

"Bobby," she was panting a few hours later, her head buried in his shoulder as his hands roamed over her body. "Jesus, Bobby . . ."

He smiled into her hair and, hearing the implicit request as clearly as if she'd spoken it, continued doing what he was doing. Concentrating on that became more difficult a few seconds later, though, when her hands, which had been loosely draped over his shoulders, came to life and began to inch his shirt up his back. He caught a breath, then let it out on an almost inaudible hum of pleasure.

A cell phone began ringing.

Both detectives groaned. "Mine," Alex sighed. "I should -"

"They can leave a message," Bobby interrupted firmly, setting his hands in motion again.

"It could be about the case." With an even heavier sigh, she smoothed his shirt back down over him and pushed herself up to reach for the phone.

Her mind still occupied with the pleasurable activities they'd been pursuing before it started ringing, she flipped the phone open first, automatically answering the call, and only then remembered to check the caller ID. "Shit," she muttered to herself as she took in the LCD screen that was displaying _Hammond, C. "_I figured he'd forgotten about me." A strong urge to kick herself rolled over her. She couldn't very well hang up on him now that he'd presumably heard the sound of the phone being answered.

"Who?" Bobby asked, his curiosity piqued by her tone of voice.

She paused in the act of lifting the phone to her mouth and whispered, "No one," to him. Then, settling the phone against her ear, she said in her best bright, professional tone of voice, "Hello?"

"Alex," Hammond greeted her warily. "I wasn't sure if you were going to answer . . ."

Wincing at the thought of how inconsiderate she must have seemed in ignoring his calls, she turned away from Bobby and ran a hand through her hair, which was escaping from the scraggly ponytail she'd put it in a few minutes ago. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Chris," she sighed. "Something came up in the case, and then something else, and . . . I haven't had a lot of free time lately."

Behind her, Bobby got to his feet and crossed the room to stand in front of her, giving the phone - or her, she wasn't sure - a look of supreme displeasure. "Hammond?" he whispered.

She nodded fleetingly and tried to pay attention to the psychiatrist's rambling reply. ". . . know it happens," he was saying when she zoned back into the conversation. "I wish you would have called me, though. I canceled two patients to free up that time for you, and -"

"I know, I know," she interrupted impatiently. "And I'm really sorry." She stopped there, unable to think of anything else to say.

"I can make some time tomorrow night."

The hope was clear in his voice, and Alex sighed. "Look, Chris, some things have happened in the past few days, and -"

Before she could finish the sentence, he came back with a tempting, "I think I might be able to give you more information for your case."

"The case?" She glanced up at Bobby, who was scowling at her, and gestured with one hand to the phone she was holding in the other, trying to tell him that the call was case-related. "What kind of information?"

"Uh, well . . ." Hammond said slowly. "It's not anything concrete, you know? I don't really want to discuss it until I've looked at it some more."

"But you think it might be important?"

"I hope so, Alex. I want to help you, I really do."

She held back another sigh at the note of desperation in his voice and thought for a second. "I guess tomorrow night would be ok. But, see -"

"I'll meet you at you work, then. Seven?"

At this point, she just wanted to get rid of him and get back to what she'd been doing with Bobby. "Yeah, seven's fine. Don't come upstairs, ok?"

She could almost hear him nodding through the phone as he said quickly, "Whatever you say, Alex." There was a short, tense, pause, and then he added, "Don't back out on me this time."

"I'll do my best, but you know what my caseload is like, and -"

"Don't bother telling me that," he cut her off. "I'll be there at seven. You either will or you won't be. I'll figure it out for myself."

"Chris -"

There was a click and then silence on the other end of the line. Annoyed, she snapped the phone shut. "Hung up on me again," she told Bobby as she looked down to put her phone down on an end table. "He says he has information on the case. We're having dinner tomorrow." When she looked up again, she found him watching her with a slightly incredulous expression. "What?"

"You're going on a date with Hammond."

"Well, I wouldn't call it a 'date.' That's what I kept trying to tell him."

He lowered his brows, obviously still uneasy. "You know I don't like him in the best of circumstances, and I don't . . . I mean, I thought after last night . . ."

"It's not a date, Bobby! I have no interest in dating him. I just want his information."

"That's not what he thinks."

"Well, that's his problem, isn't it?" she shot back. "You and I know that the only person I'm actually interested in is you. He'll figure it out soon enough."

Bobby shook his head. "I don't like this, Eames. On any level. You don't know what he's going to try to do. We still don't know that he's not the killer."

"Jesus!" Throwing up her hands, she stalked into the kitchen, calling back to him, "I can take care of myself, Bobby. I want the information; I'm meeting with an informant to get it. It's not your problem."

He followed her, bracing a hand against the kitchen doorway. "_You _are my problem."

"Excuse me?"

"You're . . . it's . . ." He groaned. "I can't explain it. I just don't want you seeing him, at least alone."

"Oh, _you _don't want me to?" she snapped, and it struck Bobby that he'd just made a costly tactical blunder.

"I'm not saying I have any authority over you -" he began.

"Damn right."

"- All I'm saying," he continued, trying to ignore her interjection, "is that you ought to have someone with you. Me."

"He doesn't like you any more than you like him. I'm not refereeing a dogfight over dinner." Sighing, she shook her head. "I can't believe you're doing this."

"Doing what?" he demanded. "Trying to think logically about Hammond, which you've conveniently skipped over doing?"

"You. Don't. Own. Me," she said through gritted teeth. "You don't even have seniority over me. You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do, or who is or isn't dangerous." With that, she turned her back on him and walked back into the living room, where she dropped down onto the couch and started to put on the shoes she'd taken off earlier as they settled in for what she'd thought would be a relaxing, intimate night.

"Alex . . ."

"_What_?"

"What are you doing?"

"Going -" She leaned over to zip one boot. "- home." She zipped the other and stood up, only to find him towering over her. "Back off," she snapped, giving him an annoyed shove. "I'm going home. We're both going to sleep on this, and maybe 'we' will be more rational in the morning." Her tone of voice made it clear that _she _wasn't the one she believed wasn't thinking rationally. "Good night, Bobby."

He lunged for her arm and grabbed it just before she darted out of his reach. "Alex -"

"What?" she said again, this time sounding resigned.

"Don't leave." He loosened his grip on her arm and tentatively slid his hand up to her shoulder. "I'm sorry, ok?"

A quick shrug of her shoulders dislodged his hand, and she took a large step away from him, resting one hand on the doorknob of the front door, which was now in her reach. "You're sorry? So now you're ok with me going tomorrow night?"

"Well, no -"

"That's what I thought." She made a disgusted noise and opened the door. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Alex!"

The only answer he got this time was the soft click of the door closing behind her.


	24. Falling apart

A/N: Another random update. I'm totally rushing the plot, but if I don't rush it, it won't get done at all, so we'll all have to settle for the quick-and-dirty version. Sorry!

* * *

When a tense, sleep-deprived Bobby arrived at work the next morning, he found his partner already ensconced at her desk, looking none the worse for the previous evening's fight. In fact, she was too busy laughing up at the three men who surrounded her to notice his approach. He wondered which one had made her smile, then decided that in his current frame of mind, he'd prefer not to know.

Kratzer spotted him first and opened his mouth to call out a greeting, then closed it again when he realized that Goren hardly seemed to have registered his presence and, in fact, was directing all his attention at Eames. He subtly elbowed Straub and tipped his head toward the approaching man.

Straub, most of his attention still on the joke Eames had just told them, caught sight of Goren but completely missed the reason for Kratzer's drawing attention to him. "Morning, Bobby!" he called casually.

Eames stiffened. Without raising her head, she peeked up through her lashes, realized from the look on his face that he wasn't going to just ignore her, as she'd hoped, and then focused with renewed concentration on her desk.

Kratzer sighed.

D'Argenzio blinked and looked from one detective to the other, then wisely opted to keep his mouth shut for the time being.

"Good morning," Goren said quietly, setting his portfolio down on the corner of his desk, which Kratzer hastily vacated. "Good morning, Eames," he added when he got acknowledging nods from the three men but no response from her.

Eames nodded brusquely without looking up from the notes she suddenly found extraordinarily fascinating.

"Eames?" he tried again.

Sighing, she set down her pen and looked up at him. "I heard you the first two times, Bobby. Good morning."

"Sorry." He dropped into his chair, studied her face for a second, and then sighed. "Anyone got anything new on the case?"

"No."Eames's overly quick response earned her another series of strange looks from her companions. "I mean," she tried again, more moderately this time "no, not really. That is, nothing big." That just earned her more curious looks, and suddenly conscious that she was just digging her hole deeper, she closed her mouth and looked back down at her notes.

"Maybe not 'big,'" Straub told Goren when it became clear that she was resolved not to provide any more input on the topic, "but we we got the phone records on Daugherty. Eames has got 'em," he added, nodding toward her lowered head.

Grateful for the excuse to get close to her, Bobby scooted his chair around the corner of his desk so he could lean over his partner's shoulder, ostensibly to view the records she was making a show of studying. "Anything jump out?"

Alex started violently at the tickle of his breath on her ear as he spoke from less than an inch away. "No," she said tightly, inching her chair backward in what she hoped was an imperceptible manner. "It's clean for the period surrounding Zamora's time of death. He's zero-for-two on alibis."

"Hmm." Painfully aware of her retreat, he sighed and rolled himself back to his side of the desks. "We should -"

"I'm going to track down his wife," Alex interrupted, jumping to her feet before he could finish his suggestion. "Maybe she's a worse liar than he is and I'll pick up on something."

Bobby, paused, blinking, as she leaned down to pick up her bag, then put down the pen he'd just picked up and slowly stood. "Ok. That's not a bad idea. We'll leave the coffee for everyone else this morning."

She spared him a cool glance. "I meant that _I _would track her down. You don't need to come with me."

He blinked again and avoided looking at any of the other three men, all of whom were watching the exchange with interest. "I know I don't _need _to. I just figured -"

"No, it's ok -"

Evading her effort to herd him back into his chair, he just shook his head and said, "Let it go, Alex. I'll even let you drive."

What else was new? She rolled her eyes.

Krazter raised his hand as if he were a pupil asking a question, but didn't wait to be called on before he said, "I think I'm getting frostbite over here. What gives, Eames?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing," he repeated steadily, nodding but obviously skeptical.

"Yeah, nothing." Opting for the lesser of the two evils facing her, she turned to her partner, said, "Let's go," and strode away from her desk toward the elevators.

"Eames . . .!" When her only response to his call was to keep walking, Bobby sighed and, reluctantly meeting Kratzer's eyes, quickly murmured, "Check out the shrink's file. It's on her desk." Without waiting for an answer to that, he turned and jogged after his partner.

* * *

"Anyone heard from the gruesome twosome?" Straub asked Kratzer and D'Argenzio that evening. 

"Not a peep," Kratzer replied without looking up from his computer search.

"Maybe they killed each other," D'Argenzio offered thoughtfully. "She looked pretty pissed when they left."

"Nah." Straub put down his pen and absently cracked his knuckles. "We'd have heard by now if someone had found his body."

Kratzer nodded. "There is that. What are you up to, Eddie?"

"Going over the phone records for the tenth time today," he grunted. "You?"

"I'm running out of ideas for Google searches."

Both men sighed.

There was silence for a moment, and then D'Argenzio cleared his throat loudly. "Uh, evening Detectives."

Kratzer and Straub both spun in their seats to see who he was talking to. "Alex," Straub said, blinking in surprise.

She gave him a slightly-too-tight smile and cocked her head to the side. "Yes?"

"You, uh . . ." Straub glanced at Kratzer, who offered no assistance. "You're back."

"Very good, Eddie." Not looking at her partner, who was trailing behind her, she gave Straub a patronizing smile and a pat on the shoulder. "Always knew there was a reason the feds kept you around."

D'Argenzio, who had been, as usual, observing the scene with mild astonishment, cleared his throat again. "Did you find the wife, Detective Eames?"

"Of course." She dropped her purse on the floor next to her desk and shrugged out of her suit jacket, revealing the silk shell she wore underneath. "But Bobby's going to have to tell you about all that. I've got to get going soon."

Straub and Goren both reflexively checked their watches. "It's past seven," Bobby muttered to himself, wondering where the time had gone. "Alex, are you sure you don't want to -"

"Don't finish that sentence," she interrupted, sounding cheerful but looking dangerous. "We've already had this conversation, and besides, it's too late now." She nodded over his shoulder, where Chris Hammond could be seen strolling toward them from the elevators, a cup of coffee in one hand. Alex had been hoping he'd have taken the hint this time and not come into the building, but at the moment, she was more than pleased to use him as an excuse. Leaning over to pick up the purse she'd just put down, she smiled at the FBI agents. "See you in the morning, boys."

"Who's that?" D'Argenzio asked under his breath, pointedly not looking at newcomer.

"The reason I need to get going," Eames said shortly. "Chris, I told you you didn't need to -"

Hammond just shrugged, drained the rest of his coffee, and set the cup down on the corner of her desk. "I wanted to make sure you didn't slip away again."

Alex, not appreciating his making it sound like she was trying to avoid him, scowled slightly. "I told you I'd be here."

"And you are," he agreed with an amicable nod. "For a change. You ready?"

She sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go." Shouldering her purse, she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair and slung it over her other shoulder. Being careful not to meet Goren's eyes, she smiled at the group of men clustered around her desk. "Good night, guys. Let's go, Chris."

And with that, she was gone, the psychiatrist with her.

"What the hell?" Krazter managed, staring at her retreating back. "Goren?"

"What?"

The flat tone of the Goren's reply discouraged any and all further questioning, but Kratzer pressed on: "What's with her?"

Instead of answering the question, Goren dropped into his chair and began to massage the back of his neck. "Did you look at the shrink?"

"The wh - oh, the Hammond guy? Yeah." Kratzer looked at Straub, who slid the file in question into the middle of the desks. "He looks clean."

"Smells dirty, though," Straub added. "I get the impression you're not his biggest fan, Goren."

Goren shook his head and looked over his shoulder, even though Eames was by now long gone. "I think he's our guy."

"Got any evidence?"

He shook his head again. "I was hoping you would have tracked something down. _Really _hoping."

"Why 'really'?" Straub asked.

"Because." He ran a distracted hand through his hair. "He's the reason Eames had to 'get going,' he's also the guy you just met, and frankly, I don't think he just wants to enjoy her company."

"_What_?" Straub stared at him. "And you let her go?"

"Did it look like I had a choice?" Bobby shot back.

"Good point." Straub thought about it for a few seconds, then slowly said, "So . . . what're we going to do?"

"You really didn't find anything in the file that might incriminate him?" Goren asked.

"Did you?"

"No. But I was hoping three sets of eyes would be better than one."

Straub shrugged. "Sorry."

Silence fell over the men again, and then, abruptly, Kratzer and Goren both reached for the empty coffee cup Hammond had left on Eames's desk. "How fast can you -" Kratzer began.

"An hour, if I put the screws to the M.E." Snatching up the cup, Goren jumped to his feet, followed a second later by the older man. "Come on."

"Whoa!" Straub made a belated grab for the cup, found it was no longer there, and stuck out a foot to block Goren's path. "Wait up, I'm coming wi-"

Kratrzer waved him back to his chair. "No, you stay here. You too, Tony," he added when D'Argenzio started to stand.

Goren nodded. "See if you can find out his home address and any other place he might take her. We'll call when we get to the morgue."

Disappointed but aware that the task needed to be done, Straub nodded briskly. "Yeah, ok. Let's hope we're wrong on this, huh?"

"Amen," Kratzer said distractedly, already turning toward the stairs. "Come on, Goren."

* * *

"Chris," Alex sighed, shifting her weight in the car seat, "would you please just tell me where we're going? I'm a cop; I don't like being taken by surprise."

Grinning, Hammond kept his eyes on the road and shook his head. "Too bad. It's still a surprise."

"I thought we were meeting because you had a lead, not because you wanted to surprise me," she snapped, remembering now why she had been avoiding the guy's calls. Had he_ always_ been this annoying? "I'm not interested in being taken out to dinner or anything. Can we just get on with it?"

He glanced over at her, his smile wavering slightly. "Since when aren't you interested in dinner?"

Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, she nervously scratched the exposed skin of one shoulder. "I tried to tell you on the phone last night. I'm seeing somebody, and -"

"I see." His eyes flicked to her hand, then down her legs. "In that case, why don't we skip dinner and just take a walk?" he suggested, nodding out the window to Central Park.

She wasn't so distracted that the idea of walking in the park that she'd seen so many bodies in recently didn't send a shiver through her. "We can walk on the street," she countered. "I don't really feel like going into the Park."

"Hmm." Hammond slipped the car into a spot along the side of 94th street and shrugged. "Whatever you prefer, Alex."

"Thank you." She waited until he'd cut the engine, then reached down to unbuckle her seatbelt. "Look, I'm sorry about this. I didn't want to make things weird." When he didn't respond, he bent over to retrieve her purse from the floor near her feet and added, "So, what is it you think you know about the -"

His fist slammed into her temple before she could finish the sentence and she slumped into darkness.


	25. Denouement

Alex awoke to the sensation of fingers stroking over her shoulder. "Stop, Bobby," she mumbled irritably, still more unconscious than not.

The fingers stopped, then tightened painfully around her arm. "Is that his name, Alex? 'Bobby'?"

Her head ached abominably, but at least her mind was beginning to clear. It wasn't Bobby who was touching her; that much she could tell from the voice. "Wha . . .?" She attempted to raise a hand to rub her temple, but found that she was lying on top of her arms, which were both asleep. With a groan, she rolled to the side to free them, but even when feeling began to return to them, neither arm would budge. Belatedly, she realized that not only were they asleep, but they were bound together. "What the hell?"

"Welcome back," said the man, sounding cheerful.

She gave her hands another unsuccessful tug and then rolled onto her other side, needing to see who it was that was speaking to her. She froze at the sight of blue eyes, black hair, and a menacing grin. "You," she finally managed.

"Of course, Alex. Did you expect your boyfriend? Or maybe your partner? I doubt either of them would have the balls for this."

He didn't realize that Bobby and her boyfriend were one and the same. Desperate for something to reassure herself with, she seized on that small advantage, telling herself that as long as he didn't believe her partner to be involved, Bobby would be under no threat even if Alex didn't survive this encounter. "No," she said slowly, realizing that he was waiting for an answer. "You_ are _the only asshole I know who would hit a woman, tie her up, and drop her on the ground."  
"The ground?" Squatting down beside her, he made a show of looking around. "Hmm, I suppose that can't be too comfortable, huh?"

Alex snorted derisively and, behind her back, tried again to jerk her hands apart, this time not so much to try to free them as to evaluate what was holding them together. There was no sensation of cold, thin metal; she wasn't handcuffed. She stifled a curse as she realized that he had restrained her with some sort of tape, probably duct tape, which she knew was far harder to escape than any set of handcuffs. At least her feet seemed to be free, she realized after a second.

"And your blouse got all dirty," Hammond mused, stroking a hand over her shoulder, dangerously close to her breast. "Such a pretty red, too."

This Chris Hammond sounded nothing like the slightly nervous, eager-to-please Chris Hammond she had thought she knew. Either the bumbling had been an act, or he felt far more comfortable with a woman who was tied up than one who was free. Not wanting to believe that her people-reading skills were _that _bad, she decided that it was probably the second one. And if it was, there was still a chance she could regain control of this situation if she could intimidate him enough.

"Get the hell off me," she snapped, shrugging his hand off her.

Hammond, taken by surprise, allowed his hand to be dislodged. Flattening it against his thigh, he looked at her contemplatively. "You're not what I thought you were."

"Yeah, well that goes double for me, buddy." Abruptly, she lashed out with one foot, catching him behind the knee and sending him back into the dirt.

Hammond just lay there for a second, and Alex scrambled to get her feet under her before he got back up. If she could just stand up, she could run, but that was easier said than done when she couldn't use her arms for counterweight.

She was balanced on the balls of her feet and one awkwardly bent hand when the slap came, sending her reeling. She hit the ground on one shoulder and lay, stunned, for a second as the pain flooded into her. "Son of a -"

"Uh, uh, uh," Hammond tsked, back in control now and leaning over her. One hand slid under the neckline of her shell, while the other planted itself against her other shoulder, holding her down. "You know, none of the other girls were this much trouble."

_Other girls_. As she processed the words, it began to sink in that she wasn't fighting an abusive, disappointed suitor - she was fighting a serial killer, and it was her own damn fault. She'd been so busy resenting Goren's attempts at interference that she hadn't given thought to the fact that not only was he not the jealous type, but his arguments against Hammond had been logical. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Hammond's hand was delving further under her top now, pulling the silk tightly against the back of her neck as he inadvertently dragged the front of the neckline with him.

"I'm not your type!" Alex blurted desperately, using her feet to push herself backwards on the ground to put a few inches of space between her and that hand.

Hammond let her go, then sat back on his heels and appeared to think about her statement. "No, you're not," he finally said after a few seconds. "But you got to me, Alex. At least you're not getting fat like that last girl was. If we had more time, maybe I could dye your hair darker. That'd be nice . . ." His voice trailed off, and Alex was repelled by the wistful look that stole over his face.

"You're not touching me." She pushed back another inch and tried to get her heels under her without him noticing. "This is ridiculous, Chris. You can't kidnap a cop, for god's sake! The whole damn department will be up your ass, and then what are you going to do?"

He gave her a cool smile. "Won't matter to you, now, will it?"

Because she'd be dead. She tried not to shudder. The last thing she wanted to do was let him see her fear.

"Enough bullshit," Hammond announced suddenly, eliminating her hard-earned few inches of breathing space with one large step. "I think you've figured out I didn't bring you here to chat."

"You're pathetic," she spat, struggling to a sitting position. "You're not going to do anything to -" She broke off there and, on the same breath, raised her voice to a yell that, hopefully, Hammond wasn't expecting. "_Get the hell away from me! Help!_"

His hand slammed over her mouth, the momentum grinding her upper lip painfully into her teeth and forcing her onto her back. "Not smart, Alex," he breathed hotly against her cheek. "Nobody comes to this part of the park after dark, anyway. All yelling is going to do is piss me off."

She could feel something like a holster on his hip, digging into her side. It was too small to be a handgun holster, she thought, and realized that it must be a case for his knife. The thought of the knife galvanized her, and she yelled again into his palm and tried to kick him, but he absorbed the blow with little effort. "I'm bigger than you, Alex," he sing-songed, his lips still almost touching her face. "And I know you like that. So stop fighting me; I don't want to have to knock you out."

She bit his palm, hard enough to get him to yank his hand away. "Yeah, it sucks to rape an unconscious woman, huh?" she rushed, taking advantage of having her mouth uncovered. "You like them awake and aware, you sick fuck!"

Shaking his head as if in disappointment, he covered her mouth again, this time making sure her lips were closed so she couldn't bite him. With his free hand, he reached for the hem of her top and began inching it up her stomach.

She was momentarily paralyzed by a bolt of terror as she realized that, barring a miracle or a big screw-up on his part, she wasn't going to be able to free herself in time. The tape around her wrists hadn't given an inch, and with his nearly two hundred pounds flattened on top of her, she couldn't even move her legs to kick him.

A sudden mental image of Liliana Zamora's bloody body broke her paralysis. That was going to be her if she didn't do something, and the first thought she had about that was that damn, Bobby was going to be pissed at her. Bobby . . .

She began struggling under him again with renewed energy. If she could just get him _off _her . . .

Hammond, apparently out of patience, drew his hand out from under her shirt and slapped her again, this time sliding his hand down to her neck after it made contact with her cheek.

Alex gasped, trying to catch a breath, but between the shock of the blow and his hand slowly squeezing her throat, it was difficult. "No!" she shrieked into his hand. Even if she couldn't win, she wasn't going down without a fight. She sank her teeth into his hand again, this time as hard as she could.

He howled and pulled back slightly, shaking his hand in pain. Alex wondered if she'd drawn blood. If she had, that would be one more clue for whoever worked her scene . . .

Her _scene_. Fear reasserted itself and she suddenly found herself painfully short of breath. Hammond's weight was crushing the air out of her lungs, and his hand on her neck was keeping her from drawing in any more.

Apparently confident that he'd subdued her, he returned his free hand to her shirt, this time yanking it up hard enough to rip through the hem and halfway up the front. "Mmm, nice." He traced long finger over the line where her right breast disappeared into her bra and Alex yelled again, trying desperately to buck him off.

Hammond just tightened his hand around her throat and grinned at her. "You're probably not going to like this. But then, you won't have too long to think about it. Works out well, huh?" When she made no response to that, he smiled wider and moved his hand to the front clasp of her bra. "Let's get the rest of these clothes off you."

He was truly cutting off her air now, and black spots were beginning to appear in front of her eyes. She focused her energy on trying to stay conscious, knowing that if she passed out, if she stopped fighting, she was as good as dead.

Hammond licked her cheek, an action that would have been repulsive under any circumstance but in this one made her feel like she needed to throw up, and flicked the two sides of her bra apart over her chest.

His hand closed painfully over her breast, but before she could even react to that, a flashlight flicked on somewhere off to the side, blinding her. "Move back, Hammond!" an amplified voice boomed.

Not Bobby's voice. She didn't know who it was, but hell, she'd take whatever help she could get. She seized her opportunity in the split second that Hammond was distracted by the light and the voice, and heaved upward, nearly bending double in her attempt to get him off her.

Hammond rolled off her and hit the ground, but he still had a hand around her throat, and it reflexively tightened now. "Back off!" he called to the newcomer, using that hand to yank her back on top of him, using her as a human cover.

The flashlight blinked off, but there was no sound of anyone moving away. "You've got three guns trained on you," said the voice, "and all of us are good shots. Let her go."

His elbow dug into her stomach ad he clutched her harder against him. "Good luck hitting me without hitting her, asshole!"

Alex could hear the desperate note in his voice. Hammond wasn't stupid; he knew that the odds were against him getting out of here, with or without her. What frightened her was what he was going to do now that he knew that.

A second later, she knew. His free hand flew down to his hip, then back up with a knife in it. He flicked the blade open and pressed it against her throat.

Alex froze, feeling the blade digging into her skin.

"You son of a bitch!" Hammond yelled into the darkness. "How the fuck could you even find us here?" Without waiting for an answer, he stood up and used the knife at her throat to force her to her feet, being careful to keep her between him and where the light had been. "Having fun, darling?" he hissed into her ear as she felt the blade break through her skin and a trickle of blood begin to course down her neck.

She had to do something to help herself. Hammond was right; whoever it was that was out there, they wouldn't dare take a shot with her head so close to him and his knife. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in anticipation of the pain she knew would come in retaliation, she slammed her bound fists into his groin with what little leverage she could manage.

Hammond stiffened and let out a yowl of pain, and in that second, his grip on her loosened enough that the knife drifted away from her skin. She threw herself at the ground, trying to keep low and still cover as much ground as possible.

Despite the pain he must have been in, Hammond leapt after her.

Two shots rang out and there was a dull thud as a body hit the ground.

"Alex!"

Bobby. She spit out a mouthful of dirt and rolled over warily, unsure if Hammond was down or not but needing to demonstrate to her partner that she was alive.

"Alex," he said again, skidding onto his knees beside her. "Are you o-"

"Jesus!" someone else yelped. Kratzer materialized out of the darkness, took one look at her, and pulled off his t-shirt. He threw it to Goren, and it was only then that anyone else seemed to notice that she was naked to the waist.

She was naked, but she wasn't dead, she thought. Somehow.

A shiver rolled through her, and she leaned against her partner, passively letting him pull the shirt over her head.

"Alex," he tried again, this time speaking almost into her hair as one hand held her up and the other began a methodical survey of her body, searching for injuries. "Are you ok?"

She swallowed, took a deep breath. Felt her self-control begin to return. "I'm ok," she assured him. "Just get this tape off me."

Another set of hands did her bidding, unwinding the duct tape with some difficulty. "How is she?" Kratzer asked Goren quietly, crouching down next to him.

"I'm ok," Alex answered for herself, flexing her hands and trying to get some blood flow back into them. "Really. Is he -"

"Don't know," Kratzer answered without letting her finish. "I think he took one in the neck. I didn't stop to take his pulse."

"Who shot him?"

The two men exchanged glances. "I did," they said at the same time, then looked at each other in surprise.

Kratzer looked at Goren for another second, glanced at Alex to reassure himself again that she was alive, and stood up. "I'll go check him."

Neither Alex nor Bobby said anything in response to that. Alex just swallowed again, trying to slow her breathing. Luckily, Goren's large hand rubbing circles over her back helped.

A few seconds passed, filled only by the sound of Alex's harsh breathing, and then Kratzer reappeared. "Dead," he announced unemotionally. "One of us got him right through the neck; the other got him in the shoulder."

Alex let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, closed her eyes, and buried her face in her partner's neck.

* * *

A/N: Epilogue still to come. Hope this wasn't too terribly cliched. 


End file.
